The Journey's New Beginning - A New (Leaf) School Year

With summer officially over, New Leaf has begun a new school year with old and new lessons planned, as well as activities sure to make this year a great one. New Leaf has gone through several changes since it started back in 2003, and this year, one of the big changes in our program is that ESA teacher Rona Zollinger, and GreenHouse Teacher Corinne Christiansen, have now combined both classes to make just one school, New Leaf: A Sustainable Living Collaborative. As of now, instead of two different schools, New Leaf will be just one school, with two classes. One will be taught by Rona and the other by Corinne, and will each contain projects that any student can be a part of. The reason behind this is to prepare our school for future changes that will not only increase our campus size, but expand our school to teach more subjects, like English and math, while still maintaining our curriculum of placed-based learning and service learning style.

During the first week of school, we have gotten to know each other and got to develop a sense of trust as we do every year in New Leaf. We welcome old and new students, and help them understand the program. So far, we’ve worked together in small teambuilding games, not just to learn how to be a team, but also to learn about ourselves, and what our strengths and weaknesses are, so we can all grow together. Also, every year in New Leaf, we have started off by trying to set goals for ourselves, and what we hope to accomplish this year, whether we’re a Freshman getting started on high school, or a Senior preparing for life after we get our diploma. In order to get a perspective from both our teachers’ side on what we need to do to meet our goals, we are switching between being in Rona and Corinne’s classroom. Both teachers provide us with the same steps, but different parts and views that we need to take into consideration.

Another important change this year is what our main focus is on, which is called the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey was discovered by mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell. It is the process, or adventure, that a person goes through in order to become a hero and change something about themselves, and others. In the Hero’s Journey, there are several phases that everyone has to go through, but deals with in different ways than others. One example that can be used to describe this is Star Wars; where Luke went through a journey of his own, faced many difficult tasks and had his life on the line, yet he overcame it all with the help of his allies and mentors. He was able to conquer those weaknesses and return as a hero. Though this journey can be seen in hundreds of movies, films, and videogames, the concept more than always remains the same and goes beyond just fictional characters, as every person at some point goes through a journey of their own where they can either choose to go through it or refuse to do so.

Another aspect that I’ve learned and believe to be necessary for creating comprehension is learning about what a paradigm is and what it means to everyone. A paradigm is a person’s lense that they see the world through, and every person’s view of the world will differ from each other, but also have similarities that can help us understand one another. In order to know our paradigm, we have to know what our view of the world is and why it is this way. Such as how we know what we know, the values that guide us, and the process we go through to get an answer. Not only have we all gotten a sense of what our paradigm is, we also understand that even if one person’s paradigm disagrees with another’s and vice versa, they are not necessarily wrong, but instead have a different understanding of the world. Learning this in school is something I believe to be very important, and would find helpful if other schools taught this kind of information. It not only helps students get along better but prepares them for what life is like after they graduate and how they can succeed

With one week already down, there’s still 35 more weeks left in the school year, many more projects and goals to meet, and relationships to build. Just like every year, we all help each get through our challenges. Not only do our teachers and classmates work together, but also our parents and community come together in a collaborative community we are, and support each other so we can meet our goals. In New Leaf our main goal will always be to promote sustainability for our environment, and ourselves. There are many projects that will benefit our school and community  and with the help of our partners, we can make this year one of the best ones for New Leaf. Finally, I would like to ask anyone out there who is interested in this program to either contact Rona or Corinne. We’re a partnership and will always appreciate any help we can get from our community and be happy to contribute to any business in anyway we can.