Exploring Global Identities at the Central Idaho School

EXPLORING GLOBAL IDENTITIES AT THE CENTRAL IDAHO SCHOOL:

A CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

CAITLYN ANNE SCALES

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of Teaching and Learning

JULY 2019

To the Faculty of Washington State University:

The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of CAITLYN

ANNE SCALES find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted.

Paula Groves Price, Ph.D., Chair

Pamela J. Bettis, Ph.D.

Tariq Akmal, Ph.D.

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Completing this dissertation has been one of my most difficult life achievements. The amount if individuals who have supported this process dates back nearly a decade when I moved myself up to the Pacific Northwest from Costa Rica with a suitcase, my dog, and my Subaru. I recently read a journal entry from the first semester of my doctoral classes where I wrote about how inspired I was to contribute to world changing work with incredible people in the Cultural

Studies and Social Thought in Education program at WSU. To this day, the sentiment I wrote about the people I am now incredibly privileged to know rings true.

Since my time at WSU I have been exposed to a variety of learning environments, opportunities with schools and organizations that span beyond the reaches of the traditional classroom and have the continued opportunity to contribute to a larger national conversation around how we all can be open to change in our current system of education. In all of these experiences, those who have mentored me and invited me into their work have inspired me to come back to where it all began – with this doctoral study. After my time doing research, the professional opportunities I took had me on an airplane several times a month making it difficult to finish this dissertation. Every person I met around the country, people who I can now call friends from my work experiences, and the students and community members I have been able to work with consistently shared the same message: “Get this damn thing done! The work will still be here!” To my community of amazing people all around the nation and the world – thank you for that continued push. The work we have all been doing together out in the field is important and I wanted to be present for that – but I am thankful for all of you and your continued support in letting me escape to complete this life goal and task of finishing my PhD.

iii To my family and close friends, thank you for letting me find my own way to complete this work. To my dog – who has kept me sane through his need for exercise and love, thank you for being my best friend. To my favorite spots in the backcountry of Idaho and Washington, thank you for allowing me to feel whole. And finally, with the greatest of gratitude, thank you to my chair and committee members. In the time it took for me to complete this doctorate so much has changed. Pam, you are retiring this year and you should be so incredibly proud of the impact you have made in the field and among all of us who have been able to work with you. I remember sitting in your office during my visit to Pullman when I was considering coming to the program, and the conversation we had was what made me pack my bags and commit. Thank you for believing in me. Tariq, you have been steadfast in your support of all students, pre-service teachers, community members, and me. Thank you for trusting me to teach so many WSU students during my time in Pullman. That opportunity has opened a world to me that never would have been possible without your mentorship. Paula, you are one of the most fierce and fabulous women I will probably ever meet. Your tenacity for the work you do, your unapologetic way of helping others see why all of this effort in the world matters, and your resiliency is inspiring beyond words. Thank you for sticking with me, for laughing with me on Zoom calls when life was tough for both of us, for reminding me this is possible, and for giving me the courage to earn the signatures of you, Pam, and Tariq. I am forever grateful for this opportunity and everyone who has joined on some part of this wild ride.

iv EXPLORING GLOBAL IDENTITIES AT THE CENTRAL IDAHO SCHOOL:

A CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

Abstract

by Caitlyn Anne Scales, Ph.D. Washington State University July 2019

Chair: Paula Groves Price

This critical ethnographic study explores how students understand their sense of being in the world in a non-traditional, place-based, expeditionary learning school environment, the Central

Idaho School (the CIS). Much of the literature on globalization in education and expeditionary learning indicates that when learning occurs in connection to place through experiential opportunities students gain a greater sense of who they are – or who they will be - in the world

(Davies, Evans, & Reid, 2005; Dewey, 1916, 1938; Esteva & Prakash, 1998; Greuenwald, 2008;

McKenzie & Bieler, 2016; Spring, 2015). This critical ethnography spanned ten months of embedded participant research at the Central Idaho School (the CIS), documenting the development of three students and the ways in which they began to form their sense of being in the world throughout their semester experience. Key findings from this study indicates that students are able to explore their sense of being in the world when given the autonomy to discover who they are in relation to the social, narrative, and cultural dimensions of the world around them (McKenzie and Bieler, 2016). Most importantly, the combination of pedagogical approach through Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005), place-based

v exploration (Greuenwald, 2008), and outdoor experiences all provide pivotal moments, or

“rhizomatic ruptures,” that impact student growth. This project contributes to the literature on critical situated and experiential education by sharing experiences through one semester-long program at the CIS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.……………………………………………………………………..iii

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………v

LIST OF FIGURES ...... x

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Vignette: Unraveling begins ...... 1

Vignette: Unraveling continues ...... 4

A Roadmap for the Reader ...... 7

Vignette: What now? ...... 9

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 10

Global Citizenship ...... 10

Global Citizenship in Education ...... 16

(Re)imagining the Global Citizen ...... 25

CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 28

Globalization and Neoliberalism ...... 29

Theorizing the Postmodern Construct of the Global ...... 32

The Grassroots and a (re)Imagining ...... 34

Emerging Through Critical Situated Education ...... 35

Rhizomatic Rupture: Understanding the Data within Critical Theory ...... 40

Summary ...... 43

vii

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY...... 46

Positionality and the Criticality of Critical Ethnography ...... 46

Data Collection and Researcher Reliability ...... 51

Entry to Research ...... 53

Data Sources ...... 55

Data Analysis ...... 58

Summary ...... 62

CHAPTER FOUR: CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS ...... 64

Critical Positionality ...... 64

Vignette: It Begins ...... 66

The CIS Context ...... 68

The CIS Journey Through Three Stories ...... 96

Introduction ...... 96

Vignette for Riley: Hold onto your soul and don’t let it go ...... 98

Riley: “The places I experience are my sense of being.” ...... 100

Riley: “I am not the only living organism in the world” ...... 102

The Owyhee Canyonlands: Living your own Hero’s Journey...... 109

Culminating Leadership Project: Experience Extended ...... 117

Vignette for Ryan: Tip of your nose and the bottom of your feet ...... 126

Ryan: “It doesn’t matter what I do here . . . it’s just a semester.” ...... 128

viii

Ryan: Place-based growth for a displaced kid ...... 130

Dude Tribe: Connecting the Rhizome through Shared Challenges ...... 133

Was it all worth it?: Critical cultural emergence is not always known ...... 138

Vignette for Shantyl: Facing our fear ...... 139

Shantyl: “I need to do something different to get to where I want to go.” ...... 140

Shantyl: “Every kid needs to feel loved and have positive opportunities to learn.” ...... 143

Shantyl: On the basis of character ...... 146

CLP Exploration: “Your growth is your reward for your hard work and perseverance” 149

Discussion ...... 152

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ...... 159

Vignette: The End as the Beginning ...... 159

Now What?: Strengthening the Spokes ...... 161

REFERENCES ...... 165

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Mapping critical situated education: The social, place, and narration as dimensions of practical experience (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016, p. 10)...... 38

Figure 2. Student-housing yurts situated near the Confluence Building where the CIS holds learning activities (Scales)...... 69

Figure 3. The river design built into the stone work of the Confluence Building (Scales)...... 80

Figure 4. Joseph Campbell’s depiction of the Hero’s Journey as used with CIS students...... 109

Figure 5: Femsquad on their Owyhee journey (CIS blog)...... 116

Figure 6. Rafting day during Riley's CLP implementation (CIS blog)...... 126

Figure 7. Shantyl facing the unknown with water (Scales)...... 140

Figure 8. One of many culminating adventures with the CIS (Scales)...... 161

Dedication

To my family, my chosen family, and for all of the students I have

ever worked with or will work with in the future.

Thank you for all of the support and purpose

you have each given me in this life.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Vignette: Unraveling begins

Just after New Year’s in 2007, I found myself driving on a highway through a foreign city divided by a mountain in the middle of a desert. This highway took me to impose myself, and my resume, on each of the 13 high school principals in the district. I was fresh off the plane from teaching in Costa Rica and truly thought I had teaching all figured out. Knowing what I do now, it is safe to say that my naive enthusiasm as a young teacher in a clearly identified “at-risk” district and my whiteness secured me a job three days before the beginning of spring semester. I was to report to my first classroom in the United States that Monday with a course load that would be handed to me day one. At no point in time was I concerned with details of researching the school (the lowest scoring school in the highest risk neighborhood in the city), the demographics (15% White, 80% Hispanic, 5% other), the reason they were short teachers mid- year (constant turn-over rate due to violence and crime in and around the school), or the border culture that was rumored to be so dangerous for “a girl like me” (white, middle-class, blue eyed, label wearing female). No. I was simply grateful to have a job in a time when most of my friends from the Chicago area were living at home with their parents because they could only find jobs substitute teaching.

The highway and mountain would become an iconic part of both the physical as well as the social system of the life I was about to begin. Not only does it connect the city, but it also connects two countries with multiple ports of entry and something that resembles a “fence” between the United States and Mexico. When people asked where I lived, I had to try to explain that I can reach and touch Mexico every day and that the mountain was naked. I realized quickly this was something you can’t explain to a person in Chicago or New York - it doesn’t

1 seem possible to be in a desert that isn’t colorful like Arizona and be that close to a port of entry

that is plagued with danger according to our exasperatingly diligent media sources. For the first

few months my family and friends from white cookie-cutter America would say things like,

“You’re so brave, Caitlyn. Off traveling the world and living in new places that are so different!

I couldn’t imagine living in a place like that.” Over the years I spent in the “place like that” I

became more and more offended, both for myself and those I had grown to care for who lived on

both sides of the highway, when people “like me” opened their mouths to talk about our lives. At

the time, I wasn’t sure how to articulate my frustrations with my multifaceted existence. It is

only now, through hindsight, that I can begin to scratch the surface of what that highway, bi-

national, bi-lingual, “at-risk” city did for me and the grief I feel everyday as I begin to unravel

the dangerous silences of things I am only now learning how to understand.

The experience described in this vignette is a small reveal of my unraveling which

ultimately lead me to the study you are about to read. It was the first professional experience

where I had enough critical language to start to understand my positionality as a white woman

teaching in an area of West Texas that is best known for its proximity to Juarez, Mexico and the

Cartel. Everything about teaching and the students I worked with filled me with joy even in its

most devastating and tough moments. What was so obvious to me at that point in time was that

the system was failing youth and in many ways it seemed that the politics at play wanted to keep

it that way. When students at our school needed to be heard, supported, understood, tutored,

mentored, etc. they were pushed away because their needs were part of an underlying culture of

“less than” by national (and in some cases state and local) standards. Angela Valenzuela (1999)

makes an excellent point that “When real-life concerns are thrust into the classroom, many teachers find themselves in uncomfortable and disorienting positions. . . These are conditions

under which teachers and administrators may turn resolutely to face-saving explanations for school-based problems” (p. 74). Rather than giving voice to the students of a marginalized population, the administration - and as a trickling effect most teachers - force assimilation to meet standards. In other words, “they [teachers and administrators] take solace in blanket judgements about ethnicity and underachievement or ‘deficit’ cultures that are allegedly too impoverished to value education” (Valenzuela, 1999, pg. 74). This is disheartening to see in an area where people of color are living white, making racism normal, feeding the sytem through interest convergence, not critiquing liberalism, and thus further purpetuating the stereotypes and marginalization of their own community. I realized through this experience that I did not know where to begin to grow my understanding of how this oppressive system might someday change.

As an educator, the superstructure of our nation state infects our ability to teach. This system, operating under majoritarian ideals, creates silences among students and teachers alike that become harmful in their progression as learners in a given community. In education, it is not solely about the white minded curriculum that a teacher must follow. Rather, it is about the way educators inspire the minds of those around them to interpret and/or explain their realities.

Because the educational system is structured to do harm to marginalized groups, those who are administering and teaching tend to follow suit - even if their participation is unintentional. Both

Delpit (2012) and Valenzuela (1999) discuss this constructed system of harm through their experience as educators of students of color. Both authors express the need for caring in schools and listening to student voices. Their stories call for educators to be human, to be critically conscious, and to understand that the construction of harmful schooling can be deconstructed through action. This call to action felt like a place that I could start to better understand how communities could inspire systemic change.

Vignette: Unraveling continues

I was upset. The deep, down, inside your soul kind of upset that you just don’t know how to put into words. I realized over the past several years that the ability for people to hear each other, to show care for each other, and to not make assumptions about each other was missing completely from society. Is that even possible? That humanity had seemingly left human kind? In

2010, I spent a year working with a locally owned surf shop in Costa Rica right after the Central

American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed. Through that experience, I realized that globalization meant a capitalist agenda rooted in Eurocentric ideals feeding neoliberalism around the globe. I watched as my friends who grew up and started their small businesses in

Costa Rica supporting Ecotourism for white, privileged families traveling to their third world country had their land purchased from them, bodegas purchased by Walmart, roads turned into highways with tollways that few locals could afford to pay, and more. Although this was infuriating to watch, I struggled with the role I was playing among my Costa Rican friends and community.

At this point, I had lived in this country twice feeling a deep sense of belonging and care.

I felt welcomed and loved. However, I was watching my home country and global powerhouse continue to pass legislation enabling their power over others around the world. I remember reading everything I could get my hands on about globalization and its impacts on societies, the economy, and education. One thing that really stuck with me in my exploration during this time period was the following quote from author John Perkins in his book Confessions of an

Economic Hit Man (2004):

Some would blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were so

simple. Members of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to justice. This system,

however, is fueled by something far more dangerous than conspiracy. It is driven not by a

small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all

economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more

widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at

stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at

the fringes are available for exploitation” (p. xv).

It was clear that my friends in Costa Rica were at the fringes and that I needed to understand how I fit in the transcultural, globally minded way I had chosen to live my life. If my privilege of accessing a place like Costa Rica as a “home” is part of the epidemic of the vast inequities of

“globalization” then I needed to understand that in order to change it…to change something and innovate the idea of equality in a rapidly changing world. For me, it began and ended with education.

Although I knew I had some level of privilege as a white, educated female – I felt it wasn’t enough and that it was unfair. I pursued a path to receive my Ph.D. and had my mind blown in so many ways through lived experiences, relationships with peers and faculty, opportunities in research and teaching, and an incredibly deep and critical dive into the field of education. This process rocked me and completely left me in a giant pile of unraveled emotions, questions, hopes, dreams, self-loathing, and grief for the state of our world. The gift of a critical lens had been bestowed upon me through my doctoral program and with it came a level of responsibility that was both exciting and terrifying. After learning about deep-rooted systemic issues that have controlled, trapped, erased, and harmed groups of people all over the world I felt like grieving. I was in a dark place and needed to find something positive to help me see that small rupture of change can amount to big things over time.

In 2014, I embarked on a journey with a semester-long school program in Cascade, Idaho that, for the purpose of this study, is called the Central Idaho School (CIS). I chose this educational experience for my fieldwork because I felt, at the time, it was a true departure from a traditional school setting for youth interested in developing a toolkit for success in a rapidly changing global society. As described in the previous vignette, I had lost hope. This experience, although riddled with issues of privilege, was an opportunity to see what youth can do as global citizens when given the tools to use their voice and connect with the physical world around them.

The school provided students with leadership coaching, individual mentorship, passion exploration, and academic excellence through outdoor experiences living their motto: when you need a classroom, the world awaits.

As bell hooks (2009) shares in her book belonging: a culture of place, “We resist acknowledging that our constants exist within a framework where everything is always changing. We resist change” (p. 25). When you live in our global society, there is a disconnect for most humans from their place and their acknowledgment of the rhizomatic motion of nature itself. As with the CIS shared in this study, “That life of appreciation for difference, for diversity, a life wherein one embraces suffering as central to the experience of joy is mirrored for us in our natural environment” (hooks, p. 25). To put it more simply, “if we listen nature will teach us” (hooks, p. 25). At the time of this study, my goal was to understand how students at the CIS were able to explore their sense of being as global citizens. What I discovered was the profound impact culture and community building had on the students attending the program. The intentional weaving of academic rigor, outdoor adventure, and cultivated connections to place emerged as some of the strongest elements of the CIS experience.

The experience with the CIS also came with a research-based critique of the ways in which a truly global experience is lacking for participants due to a perpetuation of silence and colorblindness among white staff and peers. For example, I was asked to not write about my critique or findings during the cultural exchange in Chile because the staff felt they needed to improve upon the way they approached their global impact and service experiences for students.

What I am excluding at the request of the white co-founders (as named by their board of directors) is a robust understanding of their participation, although not ill-intended, in “white silence” (DiAngelo, 2012, p.9). As a white researcher in a critical field of study I can empathize with this in some way as I am still growing in my ability to grapple with my own silence in a variety of settings (as you will read about throughout this study). “It is not possible, given the embeddedness of racism in the culture, for white people not to have problematic racial assumptions and blind spots…it is uncomfortable and even embarrassing to see that [white people] lack certain forms of knowledge, but we can’t gain the knowledge we lack if we don’t take risks” (DiAngelo, 2012, p. 11). The co-founders knew they had gaps in their understanding of the world around them and I had to respect their request of what to include in the study and trust they were working to evolve their own criticality about the way in which their program impacted a wide array of global communities.

A Roadmap for the Reader

After ten months with the CIS, this study documents and reflects the experiences and ruptures of individuals embedded in a unique program designed to mentor their sense of being in the world as global citizens. The research question guiding this study is:

How do students at the Central Idaho School (CIS) experience and understand global

citizenship, or a sense of being in the world?

This question is explored through critical ethnographic work sharing the stories of three students at the CIS. This critical ethnography also includes vignettes told from my researcher perspective from my field notes and reflections throughout the study.

The next chapter is a literature review of global citizenship in education. The discussion of literature defines global citizenship and discusses the role of the global citizen in education.

Chapter Three describes the theoretical framework for this study, rooted in critical theory. The theoretical framework walks the reader through a postmodern perspective on globalization and neoliberalism. The theoretical emergence for the study is rooted in critical situated education

(McKenzie and Bieler, 2016) and the exploration of rhizomatic rupture as a theory (Appadurai,

1996; Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987).

Chapter Four tells the story of three CIS students: Riley, Ryan, and Shantyl. This chapter tells only a portion of the story I set out to tell at the beginning of this study. The reasons for omission of some experiences and students is explained in the beginning of Chapter Four as I help the reader understand the context of the study. The setting of the CIS and the goals of the semester-long program are described at length in the beginning of this chapter. I then tell the story of each student and discuss the connection of their experiences to the three key themes that emerged through data analysis: When you need a classroom the world awaits, sense of being in the world, and leadership as rupture. Finally, Chapter Five is a discussion and conclusion. This study ends with a discussion about what has happened since the time of study and what the implications are for future research. I also discuss my own experience through this study and my discoveries of my own sense of being in the world as a researcher embarking on critical ethnographic work for the first time.

Vignette: What now?

As a result of my fieldwork for this dissertation, I have spent years exploring every corner of educational experiences for youth that I could possibly manage in a few short years. I have taken jobs supporting traditional and non-traditional approaches to learning, consulted on policy round tables advocating for equity and access for marginalized youth in school funding and programming, worked with youth experiencing trauma, supported nonprofit organizations welcoming refugees to the predominantly white city of Boise, Idaho, and more. I went on a professional rampage after completing the fieldwork for this dissertation and have just now started to make sense of the pieces making up my unraveling. At the core of every experience along the way, the most profound opportunity for change is in education and is through understanding individuals where they are in order to grow together. It is about communicating, sharing, hearing each other, and cultivating culture – together. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to continue to grow and learn. It is important for the reader to know that I am vulnerably sharing these stories from the CIS wishing I could tell you more and hoping that I don’t lose what I have gained through my doctoral program as a critical educator throughout all of my future endeavors.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

As the twentieth century has brought forth technologies and media that provide connectivity between cultures, places, and people, the concept of who a citizen is, what a citizen needs to be, and how a citizen needs to be educated has become increasingly complex. Through looking at the literature about the citizen and the global, a deeper understanding of the aspiration of a global citizen emerges. This chapter discusses the conflicting views of citizenship in a globalized society by drawing specific attention to the discussion of a spectrum of understanding

(Davies, 2006; Lister, 1997; McGrew, 2000; Spring, 2009). Following the attempt to define the ambiguous global citizen is a discussion of the literature as it pertains to educating for global citizenship. Specifically, this chapter will look at the praxis of experiential and service learning to foster Global Citizenship Education (GCE). Ultimately, this review shows the ambiguity between scholars regarding the topic of global citizenship. The histories and traditions of the nation state and Western ideology need to shift significantly in order for a new imaginary of belonging in the world - the foundational aspiration of the global citizen - to ever be possible.

Global Citizenship

The ability to formulate an identity that allows comfortable movement between worlds will be at the very heart of achieving a truly ‘global soul’ (Iyer, 2000).

But citizenship is about equal rights, not charity; about responsibility as a moral duty, not as a response to fear (Heater, 1990).

As effects of globalization continue to sweep across the farthest reaches of the earth the emergence of a necessary ‘global citizen’ has occurred. Many over the past few decades have begun to define requirements and standards of this ‘global citizen’ through scholarly work, national policies, educational policies, and global aspirations (often through aspirations of a universal polity). As explained by Heater (1990), with globalization has come an increased

desire for ‘world government’ rooted in the concept of the nation state as created by

Euroamericentric politics (those of the West). Over the past several decades the trajectory of the nation state has taken a fast track through the rapid growth of modern society. Ideas of modern citizenship emerged coincident with the nation state and a new form of sovereignty. The discussion of this emergence is no longer a question of if these Euroamericentric ideals will reach all pockets of the globe, but rather a reality of when - and more importantly how.

Furthermore, because of the movement of postmodern society’s economic and political structures the role of the citizen in a global context is increasingly difficult if not impossible to define.

With the level of trajectory in this postmodern global society we must be conscious of the critical a/effects of our actions and participation (Esteva & Prakash, 1998). The literature discussing global citizenship as a possibility is ripe with conflicting ideas and definitions. There are a variety of interpretations of global citizenship that ultimately have created a debate of whether the concept is even possible to attain as a status of identity among people. Where citizenship (as emerged with the nation state) came with a finite definition written into law and policies in more developed nations, ‘global citizenship’ is proving to be not as finite. As Piper and Garratt (2004) state, there is currently an understanding of identity that “overlooks the importance of the international and interlingual character of a global citizen, which occurs in spite of increasing globalisation, where international mobility has facilitated the ‘cross- culturalisation’ of citizens and a strengthening of ethnic communities” (p. 277). These authors believe that a more radical approach to understanding the system to which our globalized world should be aspiring is found through “the idea of the rhizome, a more radical system that is not governed by a predetermined path, but rather has multiple entryways and lines of flights. It is

non-hierarchical, acentered and nomadic” (Piper & Garratt, 2004, p. 278). In many ways, I agree with this perspective of a rhizomatic movement of humanity as per Deleuzian theory. Deleuze would support the idea that humans are by nature rhizomatic and as such embrace the interconnectivity of the postmodern world (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

To further complicate the conversation on global citizenship I look to Frug (1996) who believes that there is enough alienation and displacement through the traditions of citizenship that there is now an inherent disconnect between the basic human rights of all people. That is, people around the world understand that being a citizen provides national identity and a universal sense of belonging. With globalization, there is an expanse of this idea that creates more distance between the level of privilege afforded to those in more developed nation states and the level of exclusion to those elsewhere. If a global citizen is someone who is afforded the privileges of citizenship to float through global boundaries, then political structures need to revolutionize to be inclusive of those who have been excluded as per the requirements of traditional citizenship. In an ever moving and emerging global society, is it possible for all people to have access to the rights of global citizenship? In this way, the global citizen takes on an identity that no longer can be restricted by the roots of the nation state and the ideals therein. Rather, the global citizen must take on an identity that is fluid in their understanding of mobility and connections in, between, and around places in the world both physically and virtually (Appadurai, 1996; Halfmann, 1998;

Piper & Garratt, 2004; Suárez-Orozco, 2004). Moreover, this type of global citizen would need to understand their participation in the world as part of an increasingly interconnected rhizome of human existence (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Piper & Garratt, 2004).

This fluidity in identity as a global citizen derives from both the development of a postmodern society as well as the spread of globalization. Gilbert (1992) discusses citizenship in

today’s society as something that “is in a contingent and contradictory relationship with its capitalist context” (p. 56). We see this in our daily lives as we work under the neoliberal politics of academia, contribute to society as a consumer, and are stakeholders in labor and production movements that keep our economy spinning. The challenge comes now that we have the technology as a gateway to the privilege of being able to span spaces and places. With this privilege, people are now given the responsibility to be an active citizen in their local communities while keeping their loyalties to the world and humanity at the same time. Heater

(1990) supports this statement in his claim that “what universality the concept [of global or world citizenship] might have had is being rapidly weakened by a series of tensions.

Incompatible pairs of definitions . . . tug towards their opposite poles, so any hope of salvaging, let alone strengthening the concept as a whole, seems to fade into unreality” (p. 283). The demands of belonging as a citizen to a place is sustainable as per traditional citizenship within a nation state and the laws of that particular place. However, the complexities of moving to a concept of global citizenship are extensive because of the added demands of adhering to the laws and policies of all places you have connection with around the world. In short, “the difficulties of incorporating a complex society into a coherent relationship with a unitary polity; and the conflicting demands of state and world citizenship” (Heater, 1990, p. 284) are challenging to say the least.

Ruth Lister (1997) identifies a distinct line between two concepts of what and who the citizen can be: liberalism and civic republicanism. The liberal tradition of citizenship is one that focuses on human rights of people and the individual (Esteva & Prekash, 1998; Gilbert, 1992;

Hawken, 2007; Suárez-Orozco, 2004); civic republicanism focuses on the rights of the wider community and the practice of being a political citizen of a particular place (Heater, 1990; Oliver

& Heater, 1994; Davies, Evans, & Reid, 2005). The “reclaiming of active, collective politics as the essence of citizenship is pivotal to contemporary civic republicanism” whereas the liberal tradition provides a greater opportunity for citizenship to be something that could sustain as a rhizomatic identity in the global (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Piper & Garratt, 2004) without the roots of a nation state (Lister, 1997). Heater (1990;1994) and Oliver (1994) also recognize these two strands of citizenship and, like Lister, attempt to merge them into a possible global citizenship ideal. If the global citizen could be a possible identity it would have to “be considered the ultimate integrative and placating identity, incorporating as it does, the scores of state citizenships as well as other social and cultural group feelings” (Heater, 1990, p. 192). This mutual incorporation of the state and the social/individual is the greatest point of contradiction.

If citizenship was founded as a means of controlling a persons’ membership to a nation state for production and participation therein, then global citizenship as a way of incorporating human rights into the capitalist foundations of the tradition of citizenship becomes inherently doomed.

Heater (1990) discusses citizenship as something that “requires reciprocal processes of integrating oneself with others of like kind and of that consequent collectivity differentiating itself from those of other kinds. A sense of togetherness derives from a sharing of common interests, territory and pride” (p. 187). Regardless of the tradition of citizenship one chooses to believe in, a person is still choosing to believe in an identity of belonging to part of a social and political system. In terms of a cosmopolitan identity in the modern world, citizenship becomes “a shadowy identity” that “lacks the substance of a common tradition and nationality” (p. 191).

Esteva and Prakash (1998) understand this conflict of the aspiration for global citizenship. From their perspective:

The abstract category of citizen is a historical compromise, reducing real people to a

marginal and unimportant dimension of their being: a bureaucratic and statistical

condition (of citizenship of electoral majorities), adopted as the source of rights (the

original right to enact the social pact or modify it, and all the rights that the law

establishes for all the citizens). (p. 170).

Furthermore, with citizenship - global or otherwise - comes the assumption of equality, which in turn “continues to be the source of inequality and unjust privileges” (p. 171). As long as the nation state is the root of political and economic ideals in Western society, the global citizen - and the humanitarian needs of the individual - will be an impossibility. The initiatives of the liberal concept of a global citizen looks for freedom of the nation state to “open our hearts and minds to the diverse cultural ways of thinking about the ‘good life’” and to bring “‘human rights’ down from its pedestal; placing it amidst other significant cultural concepts” (Esteva & Prakash,

1998) which define the identities of all people, not the identities required of them from the traditional roots of citizenship as civic republicanism (Lister, 1997).

How, then, can we manage our participation in a world that is moving beyond and around the traditions of a nation state and citizenship therein? Furthermore, is aspiration for global citizenship an ideal worth trying to sustain? As Heater (1990) puts it: “Does this mean that a sense of identity as a world citizen is impossible of achievement?” (p. 191). The answer, as per the literature, is yes; citizenship (traditional or global) is not a sustainable identity as it stands in the world today:

Since the status of citizenship is now so widespread, any definition or yardstick for

judgement must have a truly worldwide application. No two states will show the same

approximation to any ideal; nor will any given state reveal the same citizenship

characteristics over a period of time; the forces shaping the interpretation of the

citizenship ideal are so diverse and the results of so many complex historical forces

(Heater, 1990, p. 324).

As such, if global citizenship is to be attainable it must be dislodged from the roots of the nation state completely. “The serial and undifferentiated representation of events across local, national, and global spheres weakens the chance of loyalty to any of them” (Gilbert, 1994, p. 60). As long as the world remains divided by statehoods and geographical boundaries, citizenship will remain too deeply rooted in the ideologies of traditional Western politics to emerge as a global identity that is capable of transcending all spaces. So, what now? We cannot simply accept that an increasingly globalized, seemingly boundless world will continue to keep “citizens” apart. My suggestion is to look at how global citizenship is being incorporated into the educational sphere

(specifically with adolescents) so that we may begin to better understand the range of both restrictions and possibilities occurring right now among our next generation of “global citizens”.

Although I am arguing that global citizenship as it is rooted today in Western ideals is an impossibility, I am hopeful that through the shaping of GCE in traditional and non-traditional learning spaces we may begin to find a way to emerge in a new way as people of the world.

Global Citizenship in Education

Global [citizenship] education should enable the ‘global citizen’ to develop an intellectual power base that would promote a true cultural global democracy which would breed economic prosperity as well as solidarity and peace for all. (Jotia, 2009)

The twentieth century presents us with a fascinating paradox. Never before has the idea of citizenship been so widely accepted and the need of education for that status and function so widely appreciated. And yet, at the same time, we may observe a greater diversity of interpretations than ever before of precisely what the role of citizen should entail. For, as the political ideas which displayed such vigour in the nineteenth century were shaped and reshaped by the powerful forces of the twentieth, so citizenship and citizenship education have had to be adapted to fit the new patterns of political life. (Heater, 1990, p. 93)

Understanding the Spectrum of GCE

Despite the conflicting understandings of the possibilities of global citizenship, the educational system of the West has adopted the aspiration as a point of need in school curricula.

Davies, Evans, and Reid (2005) point out that “the creation of such a bond between citizenship and nationality, however problematic and restricted, has been seen as strongly influencing the nature of education offered within nation states” (p. 68). With Global Citizenship Education

(GCE) comes another set of conflicts in writing curricula and allowing for students to explore their place in the world. As Heater (1990) states: “As issues of a global scale have impinged on the world’s consciousness, so appeals have been transmitted to the schools to alert the rising generation to its responsibilities for alleviating the crises” (p. 156). In Heater’s view, education for global citizenship has risen from a culture of reaction to crises around the world pushing students to learn how to be ‘active’ and ‘democratic’ in loyalty to their citizenship status.

However, as it plays out in schools and communities there is an emerging spectrum of just who the global citizen could be and just how GCE should be taught.

As Lister (1997) discusses, there are two main camps in the area of global citizenship education. On one side, there are educators and policy makers who believe in a more liberalist approach to identity, solidarity, and citizenship based on human rights for all. These individuals, as per the literature, typically work for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or are using their agency within the structure of the dominant education system to employ pedagogies relating to peace and soulful expression to engage students in a more holistic understanding of their sense of being in the world (Esteva & Prakash, 1998; Jotia, 2009; Piper & Garratt, 2004;

Suárez-Orozco, 2004). From a more civic republicanism approach, there are educators who believe that citizenship is a privilege for those who are practicing active engagement in their

membership to a particular nation state. These educators believe in the legal implications of being a citizen and teach following policy based ideals for students to engage in a more traditional practice of citizenship within the constructs of modern society (schools, government, capitalism, etc.) (Bendek, 2002; Davies, Evans, & Reid, 2005; Evans, 2006). The extreme sides that Lister (1997) presents are a great starting point in understanding the goals of GCE, but it is not as simple as a binary approach to educating from two ideals. It is, of course, more complicated.

To add to the spectrum of GCE we include Spring (2009), Westheimer and Kahne

(2004), McGrew (2000), and Davies (2006) who present interesting discussions of what kind of citizen GCE may be hoping to produce. Their ideas are similar, but there is a wide variety of terms used among the authors to explain similar conceptualizations of citizenship. For example,

Spring (2009) uses his understanding of educational theorists to view global education attempts in two categories: Human Capital World Model and Progressive Education World Model (p. 16).

The Human Capital World Model promotes national standardization of curricula, standardized tests for levels of schooling and work opportunities, scripted lessons for teachers, and promotion of world languages with a focus on English as a dominant language in the world (p. 16-17). “The primary goal of this model is educating workers for competition for jobs in the global economy” proving citizenship of those working within this model to be both rooted in a nation state and expanding to transcend global spaces as per the needs of economic and political participation and power. As Spring (2009) claims, the Human Capital World Model can be critiqued for the harm it may place on individuals by teaching them to “passively accept existing political and economic structures even when they are operating against their interests” (p. 18). The Progressive

Education World Model promotes engagement between students and teachers as well as a more

liberal interpretation of the purpose of curricula and standards. Furthermore, “the goal of the progressive model is to educate citizens who are conscious of social injustices and actively work to correct them” (p. 18). The greatest critique of this type of progressive model is that it may have better potential for teaching students to be global citizens, but it is still connected to the foundations of the nation state and the needs therein. Essentially, due to the historical traditions of Western dominant society it seems our globalized world is too far entrenched in the perpetuation of neoliberal ideals and reform to have the opportunity to educate in a more progressive or liberal manner for a truly global citizen to emerge.

In a more expansive approach to simply using two categories of GCE ideals, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) present the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice-oriented citizen. Their understanding of the difference between each is best illustrated through their example of an action each type of citizen may take. The personally responsible citizen would contribute food to a food drive and that would be enough for their fulfillment of participation. The participatory citizen would help to organize a food drive and may also contribute food. The justice-oriented citizen would seek to understand why people are hungry and their action would be to start solving the root of the cause, not to superficially suppress the problem. These levels of citizenship show clearly different ideals and beliefs in one’s daily life.

The problem with these varied perceptions of citizenship is that when trying to educate for the global citizen any one of these paths may be taken which could result in a global citizen who is personally responsible but not conscious of the justice oriented perspective. If schools are being asked to produce globally minded persons, then maintaining only a localized/individualist perspective of participation in the world will not ever fully achieve global citizenship.

McGrew (2000), follows a similar sentiment in using three ways (schools) to identify the spectrum of global citizenship. McGrew’s (2000) work focuses on globalization and which schools of thought could be more sustainable in their sense of being in the world both socially and politically. The first school is the neoliberal school. In this school of thought individuals tend to look at the fiscal diffusion of world power and globalization as a way of creating equal opportunity for people all over the world to participate in our globalized society. The second school of thought is the radical school. These individuals tend to think the same diffusion of power around the world is not diffusion at all; rather, they see it as “nothing more than an expression of Western - largely American - imperialism” (McGrew, 2000, p. 16) that continues to divide the world. The final school of thought that McGrew identifies is the transformationalist school. In this school individuals believe that the neoliberal and radical schools “overlook the ways in which contemporary globalization is reordering the relations between rich and poor . . .in the global system” (McGrew, 2000, p. 16). McGrew’s distinctions present a more economically based approach to understand the ways of thinking about participating in the world as a global citizen.

These distinctions from McGrew (2000), Spring (2009), and Westheimer and Kahne

(2004) present the ways in which much of the literature is discussing the concept of global citizenship and GCE. As such, the spectrum is broad. Academia is producing work that seeks to define how people are understanding the way they exist as confined citizens of one place. Very little of the literature discusses the possibility of what we could be as citizens of the whole world.

If we are to truly identify as being a postmodern, globalized society then we need to break free from the confines of the nation state, the West’s perceived power and command, and the

limitations of the world’s two-thirds majority (Sachs, 1992).1 This spectrum of discussion is beautiful because it creates an opening for a new imagining of how we think, act, and talk about the world in which we live. Maybe in this shift, the repercussions of globalization and its impact on identity and education could become something more transcendent, more inclusive, and more participatory. Davies (2006) looks to education and curriculum to continue the conversation.

Davies (2006) follows the same themes regarding types of citizenship and educational models as presented by Westheimer and Kahne (2004) and Spring (2009). Her work also expands to include a critique of a variety of curricula being used in Western schools to promote the idea of global citizenship. She, like most of the authors, finds the concept of global citizenship to be too abstract for schools to effectively incorporate it into their learning goals.

Often, schools present a motto that includes ideals of human rights and social justice through globally minded learning as a promise for students who are members of their school community.

However, in practice (as seen by Davies (2006), Evans (2006), Spring (2009), Heater (1990), and more) this motto is lost in the depths of standardized curriculum and national goals for citizens to remain tied to the nation state. For example, “one of the most common ways that teachers thought schools could promote good citizenship was by encouraging pupils to pick up litter”

(relational to the level of Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) personally responsible citizen or

McGrew’s (2000) neoliberal school of thought) which is helpful, but “issues of racism, sexism, international issues and human rights are crucial in preparing young people to be citizens”

1 Esteva’s chapter in The Development Dictionary (Sachs, 1992) discusses the concept of development in a postmodern era. I choose to take a risk in identifying what is traditionally discussed as the global south, the underdeveloped world, the masses, the third world, etc. as “the world’s two-thirds majority” to honor the critical consideration that Esteva requests from like-minded individuals. Rather than perpetuating the binary of the developed and underdeveloped world I choose to consider that the West (the dominant influence but minority population) is sharing society with the world’s two-thirds majority (the minority influence but majority population). I believe that in the context of my work this terminology is more appropriate for the shift in cultural attitude I am calling for as a scholar.

(relational to the level of Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) justice oriented citizen or McGrew’s

(2000) transformationalist school of thought) of the world (Davies, 2006, p. 15). This example reaches further to expose issues that are happening in classrooms where a version of GCE is being promoted. Because of the ambiguous nature of trying to define global citizenship teachers are left with trying to interpret a variety of curricula spanning the aforementioned spectrum to maintain their social duty of producing ready citizens for the nation state - and ideally the world.

“For global citizenship education to have a real impact, it would need to be set within a learning environment which not only taught knowledge and skills, which not only gave some experience of participating as a citizen of the school, but which enabled comfort with uncertainty and fluidity” (Davies, 2006, p. 18). While Davies’s work is rooted in studying the structure that currently exists and its attempt for GCE she also recognizes the complexities that come with trying to incorporate global citizenship in a structure that is contradictory to the very nature of the more liberal and progressive ideals that are necessary in implementing the concept as a whole. How, then, are schools attempting to implement GCE? For the purpose of this paper, I choose to work with McGrew’s (2000) description of the neoliberal, radical, and transformationalist schools of thought surrounding GCE. This next section will share how experiential education is often linked to GCE as well as discussion of McGrew’s (2000) schools of thought to provide context for how GCE learning is occurring in some parts of the world.

The Focus of Experiential and Service Learning in GCE

The mission of GCE curricula is to provide experiences for students through learning to help individuals understand their role as a global citizen. The spectrum discussed in the previous section allows for traditional schools of the West to maintain their structure of having the nation state be the defining factor for our purpose for being in the world. However, the whole world

does not agree with this neoliberal model of GCE (McGrew, 2000). As such, understanding the spectrum is critical before looking at where and how GCE is being implemented. Because GCE’s foundation is to experience it is often inclusive of experiential pedagogy. Experiential learning began with John Dewey (1966) who believed that education should be an active and involved process that extends learning beyond the traditional textbook and lecture. More specifically, experiential educators describe this method as “learning by doing” (Goldenberg, Klenosky,

O’Leary, & Templin, 2000). This concept is simple, but due to budgets, standards, desire, and training true experiential learning rarely occurs in schools. Kolb created a model for experiential learning in the mid-70’s that is best described by Hatch (2005):

In this model, a trajectory of learning experientially is presented . . . the learning first has

a concrete experience which is followed by reflection on the experience, which

eventuates in the formation of abstract concepts and generalizations, which leads to the

testing of these concepts in new situations, which then leads to the creation of a new

experience. At this point, the learning cycle starts again (p. 8).

Again, this seems like a relatively simple concept, but to use experiential learning in a meaningful way takes time and energy to tap into emotions, feelings, and various other human needs that are often discouraged or feared for discussion in traditional classroom settings. This need for being able to feel confident as educators to build a culture of learning with students to make this type of experience that Kolb describes a normal part of meaning making is a critical piece of GCE.

Whether or not educators are taking the time to guide student learning through Kolb’s model is what sets their GCE experience across the spectrum discussed earlier. Service learning is often the product of many experiential opportunities in GCE. Experiential learning is the mode

by which service learning occurs. The product of that combined experience creates an opening for understanding GCE and citizenship as a whole. That is, the way in which service learning is facilitated through pedagogy of experiential learning directly influences the desired outcome of the given setting (in the case of my work - a school). However, like the spectrum of GCE curricula, the praxis of experiential learning varies. For example, a radical school of thought would believe that experiential education should be the primary mode of learning all things. In contrast, the neoliberal school of thought would believe that experiential education should be used sparingly as learning should be standardized and measured in a way that does not foster the freedom of complete experiential learning. The transformationalist school of thought would seek to understand the limitations of that which comes with the nation state when pursuing the desired liberation of experiential models (McGrew, 2000).

As a former high school teacher I found that there was such limited time and such limiting structure for things that had to “get done” as a priority for the school that taking time for meaningful experiential opportunities was lost. Rather, I would try to provide experiential opportunity by going on a field trip and reflecting on that experience or providing an alternative assessment that was project based for students. This experience would be considered a more neoliberal school of thought on the GCE spectrum. The policy and goals of the structure surrounding the school is what shapes how the learning occurs. In this case, GCE curricula may claim to provide experiential learning opportunities but it often ends in a product that is a one- time experience, that lacks the reflective process, and that is often linked to a check-list of priorities from a nationalist perspective of citizenship.

(Re)imagining the Global Citizen

Evans (2006) performed a case study with educators in both Canada and England. His goal was to see what teachers say versus what teachers do in regards to implementing GCE curricula. His study, while helpful, presented great ambiguity between how GCE is being implemented in some Western schools. His reference to McLaughlin (1992) was especially poignant in understanding this ambiguity that is a recurring theme in GCE:

McLaughlin (1992) identifies a way of understanding the concept of educating for

citizenship that takes into consideration its complex and contested nature within the

context of a diverse, pluralistic, democratic society. In particular, he points to the

challenge that societies face in seeking to balance ‘elements of social and cultural

diversity with those of cohesion, an aspiration which invokes (among other things) a

familiar distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ values and domains’ (p. 37) (Evans,

2006, p. 414).

His study is important for GCE because it helps in a further understanding of the conflicting ideals of citizenship in the world. “Schools, organizationally, have tended to reinforce norms of hierarchical control, and in doing so, have undermined curricular reform that encourages democratic citizenship” (Evans, 2006, p. 429). The conflict between the needs of the people and the social aspect of citizenship to the needs of the state and the political aspect of citizenship continues in trying to educate for global citizenship. As it is clear this conflict of ideals regarding citizenship will not cease, what then are we trying to achieve in educating for global citizenship?

Heater (1990) makes a great point in addressing this question:

Finally, the teacher cannot possibly be expected to prepare young people for adult life as

citizens without a complete and agreed understanding about what the status entails.

Teaching for citizenship can be a hazardous undertaking . . . without political agreement

concerning the meaning and nature of citizenship, teachers are forced to teach a partial

view or flounder in confusion depending on the circumstances prevailing in their state”

(p. 323-24).

While Heater is respectful of the traditions of the origins of citizenship, he is also critical of the implications of our current GCE attempts. Although he recognizes that the link to the nation state is rooted firmly in our current system, he sees a vision for what could be in understanding our participation as citizens in the world. This cannot just be about educating individuals for participation in postmodern capitalist society as per the needs of a particular nation state.

Davies (2006) also sees this when she says, “it would be impossible to see the economy and diversity except in international terms” (p. 12) transcending borders and traditions of hierarchical global participation. In terms of the international, “Citizenship involves a sense of responsibility for the welfare of one’s neighbours and one’s environment. In today’s ‘global village’ all are our neighbours, to whom, as in the parable of the good Samaritan, we should be prepared to ‘show mercy’” (Heater, 1990, p. 155). Is this something we are doing? Are we participating in a ‘global village’ as global citizens? The literature seems to promote the idealistic aspiration of such a place, but even with that recognition the practice of GCE is not yet rhizomatic (Piper & Garratt, 2004). Piper and Garratt (2004) make a great point: “even positive attempts at ‘nation-building’ have the unintentional consequence of constructing an ‘other’. Such discourses give ‘truth’ to stereotyping, ‘rooting’ cultures in particular ways” (p. 283). In this case, we may never be liberated to acquire the necessary mobility of all persons for global citizenship to be anything other than a construct within a system rooted in perpetual struggles to see outside the confines of Western ideology.

This literature review has presented a complex analysis of the concept of the global citizen in modern society. There is a need for transcendence across, through, around, within borders among all persons of the world. However, current attempts towards achieving the aspiration of global citizenship fall short of allowing for such mobility. “People do not stand separate from society, but are immanent within its relations as one form of its existence” (Piper

& Garratt, 2004). Citizenship - global or otherwise - is still exclusive and perpetuating of systematic flaws rooted in centuries of politics and economic growth within the traditions of the nation state.

In considering an emergence of a new way of understanding our place in the world there is space to reimagine citizenship. This potential could harken back to the progressive and liberal ideas presented in the literature as a starting point for thinking about the needs of all persons rather than the needs of people within an established system:

Rather than transferring their [all persons] power to corruptible state representatives, they

want to reorganize themselves in political bodies functioning at a human scale; where

people can put their trust in those whom they know personally’ those capable of

commanding and leading through obedience to people’s will (Esteva & Prakash, 1998, p.

171).

This understanding of human desire provides opportunity to implement Piper and Garratt’s

(2004) vision of working as the rhizome (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) in and between spaces and communities as people in the world. If global citizenship is to be achieved it must be dislodged from its existing context. My hope is that my work will remain committed to suggesting and shaping what that dislodging may create for all of us as we continue our journey in this era of globalization.

CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

As a postmodern criticalist (Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2011, p. 164), my charge for this project is to call into question our position as global citizens (a product buzz-word of our identity in a globalized world). At the heart of every community is a foundation built on education. Whether this education is formalized, freelanced, acquired through the streets, or simply dreamed about, it exists. It exists in ways that all humans can recognize, and it is the necessary root of our motion as members of globalized societies worldwide. I intentionally use inclusive language such as “we”, “our”, or “us” throughout this piece to support the theory that our interconnectedness creates a shared responsibility for the state of our global endeavors as people.

Even outside of the realm of education our entire perspective on citizenship and modernity is in crisis. The power is shifting as a younger generation learns ways to participate with each other in the world, not in the mechanistic nature of the system that has been perpetuated for so long. As such, this study explores the ways in which students understand their experience as participants in a global society in a setting outside the traditional public school system of the West. The following essential question is the focus of the approach to this study of exploring global identity formation among students at the Central Idaho School (CIS):

How do students at the Central Idaho School (CIS) experience and understand global

citizenship, or a sense of being in the world?

The exploration of this essential question is meant to open space for critical discussion around the concept of global citizenship, opportunities provided for youth to authentically engage in shaping their sense of being in the world, and to be inclusive of community members as well as educators across boundaries of places of learning.

Globalization and Neoliberalism

Globalization is our world’s current buzz-word used as “a concept-metaphor that is meant to describe the general conditions of the contemporary era” (Hall & Birchall, 2007, p. 200) as a world capable of crossing and accessing all people, communicating transnationally, and harboring global market economies. The concept of globalization is idealistically perfect. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of having nations all around the globe find common ground, communicate freely, and have fair access to the world’s wealth, healthcare, and material goods?

In practice, globalization is currently being lived in a way that does not foster freedom and accessibility, but rather is fostering competition and unrealistic goals that are further separating the West (or the nations who hold the dominant power globally through economic, educational, political, and social structures) and the world’s two-thirds majority.2 That is, “Western power over [the world’s two-thirds majority] is taken for granted as having the status of scientific truth”

(Said, 1978, p. 46). As such, globalization has emerged as more than just terminology to express the current era, but rather, as an action of existence within the era. This era of globalization came with promises of an opening in societies, free market, transnational boundaries, individuality in ownership, and peace through connectivity worldwide. However, as Vandana Shiva (2005) states: “Globalization is, in fact, the ultimate enclosure - of our minds, our hearts, our imaginations, and our resources” (p. 30). Perhaps it is not the intention of globalization to have become an exclusive enclosure for persons of the world, but it has come into crisis as Western

2 Esteva’s chapter in The Development Dictionary (Sachs, 1992) discusses the concept of development in a postmodern era. I choose to take a risk in identifying what is traditionally discussed as the Global South, the underdeveloped world, the masses, the third world, etc. as “the world’s two-thirds majority” to honor the critical consideration that Esteva requests from like-minded individuals. Rather than perpetuating the binary of the developed and underdeveloped world I choose to consider that the West (the dominant influence but minority population) is sharing society with the world’s two-thirds majority (the minority influence but majority population). I believe that in the context of my work this terminology is more appropriate for the shift in cultural attitude I am calling for as a scholar.

ideologies have evolved in a postmodern era through a neoliberal agenda of maintained power both economically and socially.

A great danger in the current evolution of globalization is the loss of culture and sovereignty among the world’s two-thirds majority within this constructed global society.

Currently, culture in global processes “are products of the infinitely varied mutual contest of sameness and difference on a stage characterized by radical disjunctures between different sorts of global flows” (During, 2007, p. 226). It is in these disjunctures that Euroamerican (Western) culture flaunts its perceived superiority by pushing the masses to assimilate, often times prematurely, to Western World ways to find a place in the competitive nature of globalization.

This recognition of a symptom of globalization through historically Western dominance is imperative in noticing the extent to which three nodes of societies around the world - politics, economics, and culture (social) - are related. A society cannot have economic growth without political structures to impose a level of control on the monetary system; the political structures cannot exist without populations of people to both govern and be governed by; and thus, these three nodes of society are in concert with each other at all times (Marx, 1970; Foucault, 1977). In an era of globalization this concert becomes more complicated as it is no longer just the interaction of these societal nodes within one society, but also to those of other societies simultaneously as global capital, world governments, and populations share both literal and virtual space in the world (Appadurai, 1996).

Under the guise of globalization is the infiltration of neoliberalism - a construct of

Western ideology that has evolved into a troubling contribution to this global era. As with globalization, the neoliberal agenda is a masquerade of well-intentioned political strategy and plays of social power. As Thorsen and Lei (2009) state:

Neoliberalism is, as we see it, a loosely demarcated set of political beliefs which most

prominently and prototypically include the conviction that the only legitimate purpose of

the state is to safeguard individual, especially commercial, liberty, as well as strong

private property rights . . . Neoliberalism generally also includes the belief that freely

adopted market mechanisms is the optimal way of organising all exchanges of goods and

services . . . Free markets and free trade will, it is believed, set free the creative potential

and the entrepreneurial spirit which is built into the spontaneous order of any human

society, and thereby lead to more individual liberty and well-being, and a more efficient

allocation of resources. (pp. 14-15)

This definition considered, is neoliberalism truly allowing all persons to embrace the ideals it claims to offer? Neoliberalism emerged as a response to a desire for a global economy. Where there has been trade for economic participation as long as there has been man, there is now - with globalization - an interconnectedness like never before (Appadurai, 1996; Chossdovsky, 2003;

McKenzie & Bieler, 2016; Perkins, 2004; Shiva, 2005; Spring, 1998). Boundaries between people and places will never be the same as mass media allows for the sharing of transnational corporations and material goods through both tangible exchange and virtual access (Appadurai,

1996). Since the era of industry following World War II, leaders of the West have worked to

‘include’ those in other nations by offering global access to the world’s dominant powers in exchange for use of resources and labor (Esteva & Prakash, 1998; Marx, 1970; Perkins, 2004;

Shiva, 2005; Willis, 1970). I use ‘include’ with caution because as the neoliberal agenda has infiltrated a globalized world people have come to realize how increasingly exclusive the world in its parts - the great West and the Global South (GS) - has become. This ‘inclusion’ occurred

over the last several decades through a new vision of policies regarding trade and market economies as well as political and social agendas (Harvey, 2005; Peters, 2011).

This global movement fueled by neoliberal, capitalist ideals is not only about the access of power and resources but also about the rate of change among nations, cultures, and people

(consider again the three nodes of society - politics, economics, and culture). The paradigm shifted with multinational agreements and treaties fostering free trade, visa access for travel and work, high demands for labor at excessively low costs, merged global-economic markets, and more. There is no longer a sense of being static as a citizen of the world’s two-thirds majority.

Instead, there is a dynamic flow of mutual necessity between citizens of all places around the globe. As Hardt and Negri (2000) discuss, the “adequate domain for the application of capitalist command is no longer delimited by national borders or by the traditional international boundaries” (p. 253). The shift created a weakening in the standard political and economic structures of a formerly ‘stable’ capitalist nation state. Now, “the entire world market . . . for the effective application of capitalist management and command” (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. 254) determines who holds the world’s power. This weakening, as some may say, may be the beginning of a falling Empire. However, it is also an opening for a shift in our way of being in the world that could create a reimagined consciousness among people about who we are and how we participate in an increasingly interconnected world.

Theorizing the Postmodern Construct of the Global

This critical ethnography provides one lived example of an attempted reimagining of how students understand the complexities of an increasingly globalized era. It calls into question the construct of the global society, and our participation within, through a grassroots postmodernist lens. The muse of modernity, and its greatest accomplishment, has been the nation state.

Postmodernity emerged out of a cultural milieu that was beginning to witness the generation of a global society. The work of the post-modernist must challenge all systems of modern society as merely constructed. There is no absolute truth, there is subjectivity throughout the world, and we must call into question every construct in which we participate for the sake of creating spaces for newly imagined approaches to knowledge and understanding for all people. We must challenge the constructs of the nation state, citizenship, and global capital. To challenge this construct of the global society it is imperative to include the work and voices of people who are, like all of us, participating in the world. Esteva and Prakash (1998) developed a framework for understanding postmodernism that I used to frame my understanding of the experiences of the participants in this study. In developing grassroots postmodernism, Esteva and Prakash (1998) “hope to identify and give a name to a wide collection of culturally diverse initiatives and struggles of the so- called . . . non-modern ‘masses,’ pioneering radical post-modern paths out of the morass of modern life” (p. 3). It is in this grassroots postmodernist space that emergence of a new way of knowing may occur.

To create spaces in this constructed world, people must begin with the theories that infuse the a/effect of newly imagined formations of society (and thus, nation state, citizenship, and global capital). To begin the process of imagining, it is critical that one immerses herself in a variety of theoretical understanding. At the root of this imagining is Bachelard’s theory of poetics as explained by Richard Kearney (1998). This theory is the beginning of finding space through refusal of the realities of the postmodern society - the global society. As Kearney (1998) explains, “Bachelard insists accordingly that the imagination’s negating of reality is not a passage onto nothingness but the prerequisite of a redemption of the real” (p. 100). Furthermore,

Kearney expresses the importance of our ways of seeing the world as something that “for so long

has been smothered in lazy familiarity” (p. 101). The construct of the global that this study calls into question is familiar, lazy, and we must imagine it differently. Furthermore, we must also consider our participation within this reimagining. Bachelard’s theory of poetics is “a power which forms images which surpass reality in order to change reality” (p. 101). This theory is a portion of what we must consider in facing the construct of the global, however it is not enough.

The work of Paul Hawken (2007) and Wiebe et al., (2007) further this theoretical understanding.

The Grassroots and a (re)Imagining

The world currently has an enormous social movement arising among organizations of varying interests and beliefs. These movements, as Paul Hawken (2007) states, “in all [their] diversity [have] a common dream, it is process - in a word, democracy, but not the democracy practiced and corrupted by corporations and modern nation states” (p. 16) that is occurring today.

Furthermore, Hawken (2007) recognizes that “if a culture does not become like us [the West], it may not be a failure but a gift to what is now an uncertain future” (p. 99). He describes these grassroots movements as rhizomatic in nature: “Like bamboo shoots or laurel or spider plants, a rhizome is a dynamic system with no point of origin; parts that are in seeming contradiction are rather in complex relation to one another . . . the linearity of beginnings and endings is disrupted and the importance of the middle is stressed” (Wiebe et al., 2007, p. 265). The concept of movements in the grassroots that are rhizomatic in nature is necessary in applying the theory of poetics to imagine a new reality of the global. The movements arise out of grassroots postmodern ideals (Esteva & Prakash, 1998), sustain for a purposeful period of time, prove to be a starting point for new imaginings, but then absorb throughout the liminal world leaving a ripple effect that dissipates over time and space (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Esteva & Prakash, 1998).

However, before it dissipates the ripple effect may have created a rupture that was lasting enough to produce a version of a new reality out of the imagined, grassroots, rhizomatic movement.

Appadurai (1996) best defines this theory of rupture through his binding of the global to the migrant masses of the world. Postmodern reality - infused with technology and mass media expanses - includes the construction of imagined identities and understandings. In the case of the global society, we must consider this influx of media as accessible and normalized. “Such media transform the field of mass mediation because they offer new resources and new disciplines for the construction of imagined selves and imagined worlds” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 3), thus shaping the discourse and interactions that we expect in the postmodernist world. In short, “electronic media provide resources for self-imagining as an everyday social project” (Appadurai, 1996, p.

4). The global society in which we currently participate was constructed from a history of

Western ideologies and mass migrations. The West has moved or shaped populations, forcibly or voluntarily, and thus media “meets deterritorialized viewers” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 4), or as

Esteva and Prakash (1998) would say - the masses. It is in the relationship between media and migratory audiences that the core link between globalization and the modern is bound. The

“work of the imagination, viewed in this context, is neither purely emancipatory nor entirely disciplined but is a space of contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices of the modern” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 4). And thus, the theory of rupture emerges.

Emerging Through Critical Situated Education

In building upon the aforementioned theories, I would like to turn to the construct of education as a space to foster knowledge building in collaborative and cooperative ways as individuals work towards imagining a new way of being as members of the global. With an

increasingly globalized society has come a recognition of the flaws of a post-industrial education system in the West. Where it was once fruitful to educate students to be participants in a workforce, capitalist society is now more complicated. Capitalist society is now more complicated than just preparing students for an industrial workforce. Most youth of today will create or have jobs that are not yet imagined (Gaulden & Gottlieb, 2017). As a result, resources, sustainability, and governments across the globe are evolving and proving to be more interconnected now than ever. With this shift in a postmodern society has come a call for education to “keep up” with the continued change. In an article discussing postmodernity in education and citizenship, Rob Gilbert (1992), shares his concern about education in a postmodern society:

Mass education in its recent forms has been a modernist project par excellence, with its

stress on rationality, individual autonomy and the unified self, national histories,

hierarchical organisation, and progress; the challenge of the postmodernist perspective to

this view of education is increasingly voiced (Wexler, 1987; Giroux, 1990; Luke & Luke,

1990) . . . A feature of postmodernist styles is that they are archetypically the styles of

life of the young - cinema, television, MTV, fashion, rock music, dance: cultural forms

which are the expressive channels of a generation. Educators [in many instances] ignore

this life world at their peril. (p. 56)

Although the education system should still reflect a level of learning about standards for participation in the workforce, the understanding of what students need to know has changed.

The need for experiential learning (Dewey, 1916, 1938; Esteva & Prakash, 1998; Spring, 2015), dialoguing (Freire, 1970), critical thinking, technology driven production, community and place-

based knowledge building (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008), and more are increasingly necessary and something that the West’s current public school system is limited in providing.

To further complicate the rising issues that come with the understanding of a globalized society, the education system is putting an emphasis on shaping global citizens through public schools. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) has emerged over the past few decades with myriad conceptualizations of just what a global citizen achieves, looks like, sounds like, works like, and more. As per the literature, the GCE curriculums are not all the same. Rather, they are on a spectrum that works its way from being closely tied to current K-12 public schooling curricula that are linked to Euroamericentric politics and systems to a more creative, participatory, and imaginative shaping of learning how to “be” in the world while acknowledging those political structures but resisting participation therein (Davies, 2006; Lister, 1997; McGrew,

2000; Spring, 2015; McKenzie & Bieler, 2016).

John Dewey (1966) describes the experience in education as a process of authentic trial and error: “We simply do something, and when it fails we do something else, and keep on trying till we hit upon something which works, and then we adopt that method as a rule of thumb measure in subsequent procedure” (p. 99). Dewey’s perspective is important in exposing a trend in Western ideology. That is, as globalization has come to fruition it has remained tied to the ideal of the nation state in such a way that has excluded the possibility of all persons having access to a more holistic participation in the world. Education has maintained an inextricable connection to the nation state which has come into crisis.

As Dewey expresses, his proposed trial and error process creates new spaces of discovery for learning that are more liminal. These spaces use “knowledge as a passageway” and “a multi- layered complex interplay of dimensions which span breadth, depth, height, and time” (Irwin &

Sameshima, 2008). It is in this space that “we follow the liminal edge not seeking the nostalgic desire to leave where we are and travel across to the other place, but to travel between and along the edges of here and there in the unsettled liminal space” (Irwin & Sameshima, 2008). By utilizing the liminal opportunity of Bachelard’s theory of poetics, the rhizomatic nature of grassroots movements, and Appadurai’s theory of rupture, education as knowledge growth can sustain cultures while allowing for a purposeful and meaningful reimagined global. This approach presents a necessary “reimagination of public governance emerging from place, culture, and people” allowing all to “cooperate on key issues without subordinating themselves to another group” (Hawken, 2007, p. 18). McKenzie & Bieler (2016) expand upon these ideas by innovating the approach to considering how education and learning can be mapped through the pedagogical approach:

Figure 1. Mapping critical situated education: The social, place, and narration as dimensions of practical experience (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016, p. 10).

The above figure begins the spiral of learning at the inception point of practical experience through critical situated education. In the case of this study, practical experience can be defined by putting emphasis on the role of practice and activity in learning (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016, p.

13). The spiral then expands from this inception point to include the social, the narrative, and place while growing and including structures of feeling. In this process, learning occurs through an interwoven development of agency including both the individual as well as influence of the material global elements found through society (the social), text and material (the narrative), and place (the environment) on the individual and group. In the context of this study, a critical perspective of learning through experience can impact emergence of cultural iterations of human experience.

Williams (1977) describes structures of feeling as “meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt, and the relations between these and formal or systematic beliefs” (p. 132).

These structures of feelings, when explored in a situated and intentional learning environment, can result in “experiences of practical consciousness that rub up against official consciousness” where “new culture can begin to emerge, and perhaps over time, become dominant” (McKenzie

& Bieler, 2016, p. 12). This provides a way for individuals to critically understand their experiences in the world to consider interconnected experiences and how those intersections of being may shift power from the known dominant culture to a new understanding as a whole society. Through these concepts of critical situated education, I wish to suggest a theory of rhizomatic rupture through education as a foundation for understanding participation in reimagining the global society and participating in being persons of the world.

Rhizomatic Rupture: Understanding the Data within Critical Theory

Rhizomatic Rupture is a theory of social change that describes the way that ideas trickle through society, altering the proportion of the global population that ascribes to a set of beliefs, and thereby affecting the prominence of institutional structures promoted by social groups bound by common beliefs. A parallel can be draw between the theory of rhizomatic rupture and the movement of geological plates. A rupture occurs at the point where two people belonging to distinct belief groups come together and must grapple with cognitive dissonance about their own beliefs in order to make meaning of the beliefs of someone else. A rupture can also occur if a single person experiences cognitive dissonance after coming into contact with the symbol of a different ideological group (like a painting or a book), or if a person belonging to multiple ideological platforms (rhizomes) experiences disappointment with one rhizome that causes her to distance herself from that rhizome and more fully join another. When a participant in a rhizomatic rupture offers their ideological platform, they send a rhizomatic pulse throughout their network, triggering a chain of rhizomatic ruptures.

The theory of rhizomatic rupture accounts for the possibility that social change can stem from the marginalized or the dominant. While traditional models of social change assume that only if we influence or replace the ideological groups that top the social hierarchy can institutions change, the theory of rhizomatic rupture situates even the most marginalized ideological groups in a position to become change agents by amassing connections to other ideological groups, seeking natural ruptures as opportunities to inject new beliefs, and actively promoting cognitive dissonance where it should exist, but does not yet. Rhizomatic rupture is a micro-theory in which large-scale change spreads interaction by interaction. It allows us to see

the level of global citizenship truly available to the world’s inhabitants by tracking the level of isolation or integration of the networks to which they have access.

In grassroots postmodernism, Appadurai’s (1996) discussion of media and migration is critical in understanding why a rupture in society occurs. Furthermore, Wiebe et al., (2007) share a succinct exploration of the rhizomatic as it applies to the space of education as knowledge. As

I am theorizing that the space produced by Appadurai’s (1996) theory of rupture provides a chance for education to be a central component in reimagining, the community at the CIS must continue to learn and grow in their space to produce something more - rhizomatic rupture - in order for an emergence of the imagined global to occur. In finding sustainable a/effect in the grassroots - while recognizing participation in a postmodern society - the CIS is one example of rhizomatic rupture at work.

Esteva and Prakash (1998) recognize that not all grassroots movements or initiatives are successful, but I will state that even if they don’t show long-term success they are still a response to the global in a way that is about the people and the imagined spaces of collaboration within communities. In its inception year (the 2012 to 2013 school year), the CIS took a chance in their model of knowledge building and community outside of the confines of systematic (and symptomatic) public institutions of knowledge. The heart and soul of the term “grassroots” has a

“political connotation” that “identifies it with initiatives and movements coming from ‘the people’: ordinary men and women, who autonomously organize themselves to cope with their predicaments” (Esteva & Prakash, 1998, p. 3). I agree with their belief in “the people”; the masses of this global society, influenced by the West (“the West” being how I will refer to those nations in the world who maintain dominancy in terms of educating, language, economy, politics, etc.), do not need to be reduced to the Other. Rather, they (we) need to be the center of

where new realities emerge. It is among “the people” that Esteva and Prakash (1998) describe that Appadurai’s (1996) theory of rupture begins.

Through media infiltration around the globe “ordinary people have begun to deploy their imaginations in the practice of their everyday lives” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 5). Where populations are moving, where influence of the West has power, where “the people” have connection to something other than their own rituals and practices, there is rupture. It is at the intersection of the influx of postmodern media and the grassroots that the rupture occurs and leaves space for something new. Appadurai (1996) reminds us that “few persons in the world today do not have a friend, relative, or coworker who is not on the road to somewhere else or already coming back home, bearing stories and possibilities” (p. 4). In this rupture, we can apply ideas, we can reimagine society, and the global can emerge as something new.

Furthermore, “The rhizomatic relation of the everyday relies on integration and complexity for its strength. It requires thinking about it, that deep reflection characteristic of teachers who are researchers. . .” (Wiebe et al., 2007, p. 266). In the current construct of the global society there are issues of war, competition, inequality, lost citizenship, forced assimilation, where there is a “tension of multiple perspectives” that “finds a unity in rhizomatic integration” of the new (Wiebe et al., 2007, p. 266). Deleuze and Guattari (1987) state that “a rhizome establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles” (p. 7).

The CIS adopts the intellect of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) as well as Wiebe et al.

(2007) as they produce their own curriculum that is designed to be a part of their surroundings

(both local and global), as they hire teachers who are outdoor adventure experts - not trained to be a conventional teacher, as they leave space in their day to address their place and the

experiences they are having together, as they promote their place as a map of what could be rather than a tracing of what has already been rooted and established in education. The mapping of their space “is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 12).

Through this idea of the rhizome in the rupture, the building of knowledge (what is now education) allows “the people” to collaborate and act in ways by which they are not yet conscious. We, as members of the grassroots, as knowledge builders with postmodern understandings, as humans willing to recognize the strength in rhizomatic rupture, must act and create a new imagining of the constructed global society. In mirroring the movement of the rhizomatic rupture - the river, a theme at the Central Idaho School (CIS), gives us the opportunity to meet at a confluence of learning, ideas, and shared experiences. More specifically, this theoretical lens provides a means of analyzing data to show how people are participating in the world, how people develop an understanding of that participation over time, and how people may begin to shape and reimagine their identity as global citizens through their experiential learning at the CIS. The process of the coming together of minds and ideas is a flow of knowledge building that occurs in communities around the globe. In the case of the CIS this critically situated confluence of people, place, and learning is evidence of a rhizomatic rupture that creates space for the ever-expansive potential of humanity and the possible shift to an emergence of new culture.

Summary

This critical ethnography calls global citizenship into question by studying the theme of the status individuals have in the world through the context of education. Where globalization

and neoliberalism have provided an illusion of opportunity and access, the roots of the nation state and Western dominant ideologies have stifled the potential of any realistic liberation or shifting of the dichotomy between the West and the world’s two-thirds majority. As such, we must explore new imaginaries of a global space that transcends borders, nation states, and rooted perpetuations of historical ‘significance’. The theory of rhizomatic rupture is an opening within current constructs of a globalized world that provide the space necessary for emergence of anything that may be outside the traditions of the nation state.

People around the world cannot continue to be citizens as we currently understand the term today. It is too exclusive and does not allow for the transcendence necessary for individuals to occupy and participate in the world. Considering this theoretical framework, I should note that the rhizomes and the ruptures being theorized occur all the time. The universe is filled with the motion of rhizomes in a variety of life systems. The ruptures I am describing are simply moments in which the rhizomes surface in a way that humans can experience. By following the movement of the rhizome, the experiences of the participants of this study allow for the dialogue, collaboration, and imagining between persons of the world to transcend their literal space through travel and share in an experience of rhizomatic rupture that will continue to move and connect. This movement inspires a possibility of a paradigm shift that is no longer deeply rooted in what was, but rather, in what could be through experiences shared in this globalized world.

This critical ethnography provides an example of how the participants were thinking, experiencing, and evolving before, during, and after their experience with a school in central

Idaho. This school, the Central Idaho School (CIS), is an experiential and expeditionary learning school that provides high school aged students a semester long experience that pushes the boundaries of the traditional classroom through curricula that focuses on developing an

understanding of being a person in the world. In this study, the CIS is an example of critical situated education (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016) where the social, narrative, and environmental experiences of students in the CIS program provide evidence of their sense of being in the world.

In the context of this study, I use critical theory to provide a framework for understanding these issues of a global society. There is a motion in the world, nothing is stagnant, participation is not unnoticed, people are not disconnected. This study with the CIS will contribute to the field of

Cultural Studies and Education in new ways to begin creating a bridge from theory to praxis.

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

This study is a critical ethnography that examines the experiences of one cohort of students at the Central Idaho School (CIS). The purpose of this study is to explore the question:

How do students at the Central Idaho School (CIS) experience and understand global

citizenship, or a sense of being in the world?

In this chapter, I discuss critical ethnography as a research method. I also detail the design for this research study along with a summary of the setting, the data analysis process, a critical interrogation of researcher positionality, and the limitations of the study.

Positionality and the Criticality of Critical Ethnography

As a professional in the field of Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education, I believe it is imperative to use critical research methods to study the everyday lived experiences of people when trying to understand and contribute to any critique or potential change in a given system. For this study, I use the method of critical ethnography. This section highlights the importance of critical research as well as describes the unique purpose of critical ethnographic work. My positionality as a novice, white, female, participant researcher is discussed throughout this section. This critical research study positions me in a setting with students who grew up in families similar to my own background, who have the economic privilege to access an alternative education experience like the CIS. The irony of a unique educational experience coming at a cost of tuition in this era of capitalism is not lost on me. I accept and embrace my privilege, whiteness, and the responsibility that comes with it. I also embrace my desire to explore experiences in education that disrupt the status quo and continue to inform and develop ways in which these experiences can be inclusive of all communities who desire a change in the way we educate our youth.

My experience as an educator took me, by choice, to areas very unlike where I grew up.

Over the last decade, I have grappled with my position in these communities where a neoliberal agenda has imparted in my students a belief that I can save them from their life and provide for them other opportunities. This is an incredible flaw in our system. What the system was not allowing for was the agency among students to build a toolkit that prepares them with experiences and skills necessary to change their own path and move beyond the culture they were born into. My desire to work in communities of color, to question the system of education that has remained a steady producer of othering since the inception of the nation state, and to unpack my own whiteness has been a painful process. It has led me through times of over-action and times of stagnation. Approaching this research project, I was ready to change the world through sharing the story of one educational opportunity that was radically different than the traditional system. After spending 10 months embedded in the setting at the CIS I left feeling defeated. Admittedly, it took me a very long time to pick up the data and dive back into the study.

Thomas (1993) discusses the wildness of critical research. He shares, “There is an outer rim of practices and processes that constrains our research and how we talk about it, and most of us are too concerned with what lies within this narrow universe to examine how its rim is created and what lies beyond it. Our problem is that we are accustomed to our intellectual leash; we have become domesticated” (p. 8). Now that this story is being told, I believe that this intellectual domestication was an incredible impediment on my ability to be truly critical. I was traditionally trained to be a classroom teacher, I have dedicated years of my life to the field of education, and yet I am incredibly dissatisfied with the status quo of our current education system in the United

States. My hope when engaging in this research was to uncover an experience for students that

truly could change the system at large. What I uncovered was that even in an opportunity that lives outside of the confinements of the education system there are restraints severe enough to restrict equal access, reify societal norms, and perhaps achieve only a portion of the goals set forth for students in each semester experience. I felt, at first, that embracing what could be beyond the outer rim that Thomas (1993) talks about may be impossible. And then, it clicked.

This study does not have to be the one answer for systemic change in education. If there is anything I have learned over the past few years since completing my field work, it is that there is no one answer. Every critical research study I have ever read is informing opportunity, critiquing the way things are, digging into the impact of culture and place, and never producing one finite solution. Rather, critical research “. . . leads to the possibility of transcending existing social conditions. The act of critique implies that by thinking about and acting upon the world, we are able to change both our subjective interpretations and objective conditions” (Thomas,

1993, p. 18). This study is my first time doing a large-scale critical research study. No part of me as a novice scholar will try to tell you that this was a flawless study without issue along the way.

Throughout the study, I include vignettes of my field notes, expressions of my struggles as a young researcher, and honest accounts of grappling with my own identity along the way. I choose to take Thomas’s (1993) advice and “celebrate [my] normative and political position as a means of invoking social consciousness and societal change” (p. 4). The critical exploration of the experiences had by students at the CIS during a semester-long experience in this study ought to inform educators of the ways in which learning experiences may inform a students’ sense of being in the world – their conception of being a global citizen in the world today. Merriam

(2009) reminds critical researchers that “research focused on discovery, insight, and understanding from the perspectives of those being studied offers the greatest promise of making

a difference in people’s lives” (p. 1). Critical research “is a contrast between a research that seeks merely to understand and research that challenges . . . between a research that accepts the status quo and a research that seeks to bring about change” (Crotty, 1998, p. 113). Critical research allows for a theoretical and methodological means of working through data collected from the experiences of people in the setting for research.

This approach is critically conscious and focused on analyzing power dynamics, cultural themes, institutional practices, and more on a local scale and a wider scale as the focus on one place is also tied to the a/effects of the larger area and world. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) say it well:

What is involved here [in a qualitative study], then, is a significant development of the

ordinary modes of making sense of the social world that we all use in our mundane lives,

in a manner that is attuned to the specific purposes of producing research knowledge. (p.

As a critical researcher, the methods and approach to the setting are much like the way we approach understanding our own life. We observe, we infer, we coexist, we build relationships, and we continue moving through the motions of day-to-day actions. The difference as a researcher is that what is involved is the responsibility to produce an ethical product that is both in line with compassion and fairness of the lives of those involved in the study as well as productive and succinct work for a contribution to the field as research that illuminates a specific

(and typically complex) issue through a valid and trustworthy process.

To share the experiences had by participants in this critical research study, I chose to employ the method of critical ethnography. An ethnographic study is one that requires the researcher to observe and analyze a specific culture while in the field for an extended period of

time. In this study, the cultural phenomenon is the concept of being a part of a global society as observed through the experiences of those participating in the CIS during one semester experience. Ethnography is historically rooted in the field of anthropology but has since been utilized in many social science fields. The shift from traditional ethnography to critical ethnography puts the research in a position to push beyond the observation of “what is” and move into the analysis of “what could be” (Madison, 2012). Further, “The lesson for critical ethnographers is profound, but not complicated: We let the data speak to us, we do not prejudge or impose our own preferred meanings, and we make sure that we do not say is when we mean ought” (Thomas, 1993, p. 22). The ultimate goal of a critical ethnographic study is to produce a truly expansive cultural understanding of future possibilities through the voices and experiences of those in a specific setting. This study with the CIS provides a foundational example of a departure from the traditional public school setting of the West (the “what is” factor) by analyzing the experiences of a different approach to learning for one cohort of students who participated in the study (the “what could be” factor).

The use of critical ethnography for this study is rooted in the decision to completely insert myself as a researcher on-site and in the culture of the CIS. I visited campus part-time for five months leading up to the semester of study to observe, understand, and become seamlessly integrated into the systems that exist at the CIS. Following the five months of exposing myself to the culture, I lived with one cohort for a full semester of study participating in their day-to-day.

Quantz (1992) identifies the difference between traditional and critical ethnography:

Whereas the traditional ethnography understands the ethnographic project as either

complete or in itself as a part of the idealist project of ethnology, the critical ethnographer

sees the ethnographic project as an aspect of critical theory, which must eventually be

completed in political and social action. (p. 467)

I studied the CIS to expose the culture by which students who enter this program understand or experience their sense of being in the world. This critical ethnographic study examines the culture at the CIS to contribute to knowledge informing elements of a unique learning environment that may inspire resistance and democratic possibility (Kincheloe & McLaren,

2000).

The discovery of how the CIS provided a setting for learning how to be people of the world allowed for a rich set of incredibly diverse experiences. As explained by Denzin and

Lincoln (2013), the qualitative researcher becomes a builder of data linking who creates a

“pieced together set of representations that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation” (p.

8). This study focuses on the work of the CIS in shape-shifting a different approach to the phenomenon of global citizenship in education as one example of the ways we could begin to reimagine our (both adults and youth) participation in society as a whole.

Data Collection and Researcher Reliability

I collected data over the course of ten months that examined the overall culture of place and the student experience at the CIS. There were emotions involved and ethical implications of working as both a person who cares for the research as well as a person who is the actual instrument of the research. There is no SPSS system to put forth a scatter plot, there is no graphing of anonymous subjects, there is no sense of being separate from the subject of research.

There are, however, the voices and experiences of real people whose words I collected over time and whose experiences are vulnerable to the honesty and integrity of myself as the researcher.

McCadden, Dempsey, and Adkins (1999) make an important point in further understanding what researchers need to be conscious of in the production of their work:

The critical questions (no pun intended) on our end is knowing when the voice is that of

those whom we seek to understand through our work versus an [‘echo’] of our own

researcher voice, bouncing back to us off the landscape of the lived experiences of others.

(p. 38)

In collecting data for this study, I maintained a deep understanding of the balance between subjectivity and objectivity, of othering, and of being transparent about ethically difficult points in the research process.

During the study, I collected a variety of data to develop a depth of understanding the

CIS culture and experiences. Data sources include interviews (both formal and informal), impromptu conversations and debriefs with students and staff, field observations, student work, school blog and website, English curriculum, leadership course curriculum, and videos/photos of student experiences. The founders allowed for me to have open access to all documents that did not contain restricted student information. They did, however, ask that I review the findings of the data with them before my departure to see if there are areas of the program that they could revisit for structural change. Teachers and students specifically asked that I not include pieces of their work or stories in the final product. Due to some decisions made by students during the semester, their whole contribution to the semester had to remain untold. Although these elements of the research process had significant impact on the overall outcome of the experience for everyone involved, I couldn’t include it in my writing. This brought forth a struggle with the desire to focus only on the story that I could tell about the student experience, rather than also

including the experience of staff. In future work, I hope to explore the missing data – or the systemic issue behind the removal of the data from this study – in greater depth.

Reliability in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data is only one piece of the overall process. The need to be critically conscious of your own positionality as the participant researcher is also a critical component of reliability and validity of the study.

Madison (2004) discusses a robust background in researcher positionality within critical ethnographic work. A critical ethnographic researcher must “move to contextualize our own positionality, thereby making it accessible, transparent, and vulnerable to judgement and evaluation” (Madison, 2004, p. 8). It is an ethical responsibility that researchers present the data, and tell the stories, in acknowledgement of “our own subjectivity and political perspective, resisting the trap of gratuitous self-centeredness or of presenting an interpretation as though it has no ‘self,’ as though it is not accountable for its consequences and effects” (Madison, 2004, p.

8). My interest in this study with the CIS comes from my background in teaching, outdoor education, and expeditionary learning. It comes from my desire to investigate ways in which the neoliberal agenda in educational opportunities for youth might change in the West. The outcomes in this study ought to share an example of ways students can approach their own understanding of their sense of being in the world to inform readers of ways in which they can take action in their own way.

Entry to Research

In February of 2014, I visited the CIS to see a friend who was teaching there at the time. I wanted to explore a research opportunity with the CIS because of their approach to expeditionary learning in the backcountry with rigorous academic and leadership curricula. I met a few families who had students that attended the CIS in their first year of semester-long programming and it

seemed that those students were well equipped to be critical about their participation in the world around them and did not accept everything as it is in their life. As a result of this visit, the founders agreed to work with me. They requested that I spend the spring semester observing classes, culture, and students whenever I had the time to come to campus. They wanted to expose me to their approach to their semester program and to be able to ask questions about the complexities of it before being an additional full-time person on campus. This seemed fair to me.

Their day-to-day culture of learning is not like a typical school setting and their expeditionary learning opportunities in the backcountry came with a great deal of risk. The founders wanted me to establish relationships with the staff to build trust around my abilities to participate and lead in backcountry experiences as well as to share my experience as an educator. The goal of my time with the CIS was to become a member of the community rather than a liability to the school.

During the remainder of the spring semester, I was able to participate with students during their Wilderness Advanced First Aid course on-campus, join for academic classes for two three-day spans, attend their last week of the semester including their graduation ceremony, and to stay for two days after graduation to debrief with staff. During the two days after graduation, the founders and I planned for the next semester. During the fall semester of 2014 I lived on campus, participated in each backcountry trip, traveled with the cohort to Chile for their cultural exchange, and observed their classes both on-campus and in the backcountry.

Having the context from the previous semester was absolutely the best foundation I could have had prior to living with the CIS for a full semester-long experience. The complexities of how the semester runs logistically is incredibly overwhelming and I was so thankful to have that knowledge before joining full-time for research. The bulk of my time spent interviewing staff and understanding the structures of the CIS took place during the spring semester of my

foundation-building visits. This allowed for me to spend more time focusing my research during the fall semester with the student experience. The staff were the same each semester which allowed for me to build trusting relationships with each of them over an extended period of time.

During the fall semester, their input was reflective of comparing each semester experience that I witnessed and expressing their emotions towards the work they were doing with the CIS.

Without the spring semester of relationship building I don’t know that I would have really understood the complexities of the staff experience in being a backcountry expert leader and a rigorous academic leader in this unique setting.

As a result of a variety of variables with student needs, campus needs, technology needs, staffing needs, and cultural needs, most of my data analysis occurred in chunks following each core experience. The comparison of independently coded artifacts occurred several times throughout the semester to begin identifying common categories and themes. The deep dive into working through finalizing themes that emerged from the data, and therefore defining a theoretical framework, occurred towards the end of the semester and again during the writing process. Extensive use of color-coded notes, post-its, and Google Docs provided a robust foundation for narrowing categories to core themes and really making sense of what had occurred during my time with the CIS. I describe the evolution of the coding and analysis process in more depth later in this chapter.

Data Sources

Interviews: students, focus groups, and staff. The founders wanted my presence on campus to be consistent for the students. They did not want my interviews or data collection to seem invasive or untimely. As such, we worked to integrate my interviews with students in ways that were closely linked to already existing projects and experiences so that we could build the

experience of sharing with me into their current work load. For example, students already must participate in entry, midterm, and exit interviews with the founders and staff. We incorporated my research question into these interviews to gather data expressing how students understood their place in the world at the beginning of the program and through their growth before leaving the CIS.

Another example comes with the expeditionary learning that students are doing throughout the semester. I planned to identify two focus groups within the fall cohort, but as the semester progressed there were external factors that limited this to one focus group consisting of three students. This was a disappointing shift in data collection, but it provided a more robust study of three students’ experiences (deeper and wider) rather than what was turning out to be a very shallow presence of experience with larger groups and more peer-oriented panel interviews.

The focus for working with these three students was to debrief experiences after each expedition, to discuss experiences on campus in learning – specifically focusing on their English coursework that is designed to guide their evolution as individuals in the world, and to take a deeper dive into their development of the Culminating Leadership Project (CLP) in their leadership course. This allowed for me to have more focused and extensive data for the three participants while still having access to all students’ reflective work and my observations of whole-group interactions/experiences throughout the semester.

Additionally, I collected data from the staff through interviews throughout the semester and discussions regarding their approach to curriculum design. Two staff members were the most consistent with participating in this data collection process. These two staff members saw my research as an opportunity for them to critically reflect and analyze their own impact on the mission and vision of the CIS. At the request of the CIS, I did not include the data from staff in

this study. However, after I completed the study, both of these staff members helped to design some shifts in their approach on campus with their programming and experience in linking the academic and experiential opportunities more holistically for incoming students. The data gathered from staff during this study, and the changes they have implemented in semesters since this study, would be an excellent exploration for future work.

Documents. To gain deeper understanding of the school and the semester experience, I analyzed several documents produced by and for the CIS. The student handbook and staff handbook were critical documents in exploring the structures set forth to be a member of the CIS community. Each academic course was designed as an expedition plan for the school. These expedition plans followed the Understanding by Design model (UbD) designed by Wiggins and

McTighe (2005). As a result, I analyzed the pedagogical foundations of UbD frameworks as well as the English and leadership course expedition plans for the CIS. Each of these academic courses were designed to explore students’ sense of being in the world, culminating in a leadership project that put performative action into showing their deeper understanding after their semester experience. Elements of both the English and leadership expedition plans are described in the data analysis chapter of this study. A surprising contribution to the data collection was the work for the English class. The staff member, Elle, who designed this curriculum - and the experiences therein - had a vision for the way in which the learning process can be inclusive of the experiences during expeditions holistically and not just reflectively. This course design was a strong parallel to the leadership course that helped to make sense of the student experience as a whole.

The marketing videos and materials, blog, and website for the CIS were also critical documents that were analyzed. These provided a real-time understanding of the experiences

being had during the semester together, the way in which the CIS tells their own story, and the way in which staff and students tell their story to a more global audience. These documents and my extensive field notes helped me understand the culture of the CIS over time.

Student work. Throughout the ten months of study there was ample opportunity to analyze student work. Specifically, the mentorship course that I co-taught provided access to student work documenting their growth in the leadership course as well as the process of their

CLP. This student work was submitted on-line with Google Classroom, which allowed me to have easy access to the work as I looked at how each student was evolving with their perspectives of being in the world. The work of three students is discussed throughout this study drawing on examples from their English and leadership courses.

Data Analysis

When analyzing data, I focused on maintaining ethical practices aligned with critical ethnographic case study work: “They [ethical issues] also come during the data analysis phase when researchers do not side with participants, shape findings in a particular direction, and respect the privacy of individuals as their information is reported” (Creswell, 1998, p. 66).

During the analysis of the data (discussed later in this chapter), I was able to apply the theoretical lens with the methodological process of critical ethnography to make sense of the outcomes of the study. The method of a critical ethnographic study is important in taking the necessary actions to create and implement a study, the continued talking back to the theory is what “does not necessarily block our access . . . but, instead, shows us the way into its deeper (not always seen or evident) questions and veracity” (Madison, 2012, p. 36). Maintaining a role throughout the semester as a participant researcher who also had responsibilities on-campus was the most difficult part of the research process.

Trials During Coding

Madison (2012) states that “The researcher’s analysis serves as a magnifying lens or, better, a house of mirrors to enlarge, amplify, and refigure the small details and the taken for granted” (p. 36). My process of analyzing the data uncovered the relationships that exist among each data source and among the experiences of the three focus students. During my foundation- building semester with the CIS, I was not very proactive with my analysis. This created a lot of work over the summer to begin to identify themes and patterns within the data collected during the first few months with the CIS. During the fall semester of full-time research, my habits of coding became something that I did continuously as I collected and examined data. Although the habit of continuously coding was defined, the process that was planned had to take a large shift.

The original plan for tracking the coding process and data sources was to use the qualitative analysis software ATLAS.ti. This software can house multiple forms of media and text and can synthesize coding processes across all sources in a study. I was incredibly excited to use ATLAS.ti because I knew there would be an abundance of data sources, including multiple forms of media that would be difficult to track manually. At the time of this study, ATLAS.ti had just completed a beta round of development and was still working out some technical issues with their upgrade. Due to the nature of the CIS, we were in the backcountry nearly every week for consecutive days with limited – or often unreliable – internet. Updating the software on my iPad during time off-campus was incredibly unreliable under the circumstances of the school’s schedule. As a result, utilizing ATLAS.ti was not feasible. I made the decision after our second back country expedition to stop using the software and instead code by hand.

I printed the core documents --student and staff handbooks, blog posts from the website, marketing videos and materials, leadership expedition plan, and English expedition plan. I saved

all other dynamic resources such as student work, expedition plans, live collaborative documents used by staff, videos and pictures from each experience to Google Drive for access off-line or on-line. My researcher field notes are handwritten in two journals as well as typed in a document on the Google Drive. As I independently coded each data source, I added it to a master list of codes. This was incredibly difficult at times to maintain coding efforts while working between my iPad, laptop, printed resources, and journals. Regardless of the difficulty of keeping data sources organized and tracked, it worked the way it needed to in the research setting. Thomas

(1993) states that “Good ethnography requires flexibility. The collection of data may be the one area where flexibility is the most crucial, because our study can be no beter than the data we collect” (p. 41). It was a learning experience, but that was part of the process that contributed to this study.

Coding Process

To analyze the data, I used Glaser’s (1965) constant comparative method of coding to work through each experience at the CIS as well as each document or textual analysis associated with the study. The constant comparative method of coding (Glaser, 1965) allowed me to let theory emerge over-time as I moved from codes to categories, and finally to the development of themes. Each data source was coded independently. As more data sources were collected and coded, I compared all emerging codes across data sources to being to identify categories throughout the semester experience. Toward the end of the semester, I took all data sources I had gathered and the codes that emerged to discover the categories for the overall study. This process was grueling. It began on-campus in my living area with papers and post-its with codes all over the walls. I had to move in the middle of this process and captured the codes and emerging categories digitally to continue the process after the semester had ended. When I returned to my

home in Boise after the semester experience with the CIS, I revisited the codes and categories to consider the themes of the study. It was disappointing to realize that so much of the study relied only on the work and openness of three students. I felt defeated during the coding process as I tried to find ways to capture the nuances that were parts of the experience that I was not able to share in this study.

For each piece of data collected, I did an initial round of independent coding to identify common categories. I added these common categories to a working Google Doc from each data source to identify common relationships between the experiences at the CIS. The leadership course was one data source that initially presented itself to be a supporting element to overall emerging themes. However, as the semester progressed, and more data sources were added, the leadership course seemed to be a catalyst for how students interpreted their own experiences.

Initially, the emerging categories were directly tied to student work. Over the course of the semester, the student work was still driving the emergence of common themes, but it wasn’t the actual assignments as I initially thought. Instead, it was the holistic structure of how the assignments were designed within the course that made the experience meaningful for students.

This pushed me to investigate the model of Understanding by Design (UbD) (Wiggins &

McTighe, 2005) that the CIS used in both the English and leadership courses. This model, when used in any of the experiences for students at the CIS, proved to be an integral part of how students developed their own understanding of their sense of being.

The three themes of this study represent the most prominent and consistent things that emerged from the data after coding all sources and using Glaser’s (1965) approach of constantly comparing them against each other as the study evolved. The themes are:

1. When you need a classroom, the world awaits.

2. Sense of being in the world

3. Leadership as rupture

The first theme emerged as the mission of the school which ultimately proved to be both experiential and metaphorical for the student experience as a whole. In exploring the assignments and experiences in the English and leadership courses, the second theme emerged from the power brought to the student experience through their reflective and performative opportunities in both courses. Finally, the third theme emerged from the values framework that lies within the leadership course that proved to impact the way students discovered their growth as participants in a globalized society.

Summary

This chapter explained the research design and methodology of the critical ethnography done at the CIS. For the purpose of this study, I used the following research question:

How do students at the Central Idaho School (CIS) experience and understand global

citizenship, or a sense of being in the world?

I stated my researcher positionality and discussed it in relation to the study while also highlighting some issues of data being excluded from this dissertation. This chapter also described the data sources that I collected as well as the method by which I analyzed them.

I share the interpretation of the data in the following chapters of this dissertation as a narrative. The discoveries from the data and the emergence of students’ development of being people of the world are presented using evidence from the data sources as well as student voice.

Due to the involvement I had with the program during my ten months of study, both as a participant and researcher, I have woven throughout my personal field note reflections to show a parallel for the struggles encountered. As a researcher in a critical field of study, I believe it is

imperative to maintain a consistent voice to both the outcomes and participants as well as to the researcher’s evolution throughout the course of the ethnographic study. A crucial method of understanding the data in this study lies in the theoretical lens of rhizomatic rupture to show the interpretation of how the members of the study are developing a sense of global citizenship - or being people of the world.

CHAPTER FOUR: CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS

Critical Positionality

The decision to pursue the CIS for this critical ethnography evolved during many conversations with the CIS founders, Seth and Kara. My positionality as a researcher in their program came with a great deal of intentional considerations. At the time of the study, the CIS was a newly accredited school in their third semester of hosting students. Having me, a teacher and researcher, expose and challenge aspects of their school culture and/or curriculum was a risk

Seth and Kara discussed with me as we worked together to decide how I would fit best into their school and gather data to tell the story of the CIS. It required trust to feel comfortable about what

I would publish, glean, discuss, etc. during the time I worked with the school. I am grateful that I took time to build relationships and trust in the school for five months prior to being there full- time as a participant observer and researcher. I was able to get to know an education community that is different from the status quo of Western public schooling. I was embedded in an educational experience which provided a new way of conceptualizing what students may need in their schooling in order to truly be a member of an increasingly interconnected world.

I lived on campus for portions of each week of the semester, eating meals with students and staff every day, keeping up with chores as part of the culture of the school, and sharing duties for study hall and mentor meetings. The founders asked me to co-teach two courses with them. The first was to work with students from the previous semester experience as they returned home to implement their service learning project in their home community. Second, I was to be a mentor to two teaching fellows who were working towards their teaching certification. The role of teacher and mentor was something that I considered heavily as I planned for and implemented this research project. I believe that their idea to have me co-teach classes and live on campus

speaks to a desire to have me feel connected and responsible for the school and its intentions overall. I was put into a role of teacher and colleague which made me want to share, collaborate, and research with the founders and school members in a way that gives back to them as much as it is giving to me. However, being given this level of responsibility while conducting my own research at the site caused some ethical dilemmas that I discuss in the following chapter on data analysis.

In critical qualitative work, it is imperative to have multiple modes of data (interviews, documents, media, observation) to ensure trustworthiness. Through a critical lens (both theoretically and methodologically) this process is involved, inclusive, and deep. According to

Noblit and Engel (1991):

The inexperienced field researcher often expresses concern over the perpetual motion

possibility of infinite egress. There are so many contexts to be contextualized that taking

all into account may never come to an end. The more experienced field researcher sees

the process as iterative – working backward and forward until no new interpretations

emerge. (p. 56)

Critical qualitative work involves overt or covert participation of a researcher, over a long period of time, in a given setting (listening, doing, sharing, talking, observing), and being open to an emergence of themes and issues within that setting. Although I have done critical research before, I have not done a ten-month expansive study using critical ethnography. Throughout the process of exploring the data and experiencing the culture of the CIS it was incredibly difficult to see an end, or even a way to make sense of everything that was happening around me. The amount of data collected, experiences had, field notes written, and relationships nurtured is vast.

So vast that I didn’t know where to begin to make sense of it all. Determining where to focus the

research to tell the story of the CIS during my time there was exactly what Noblit and Engel

(1991) describe for the inexperienced field researcher. Over time, and after gaining a great deal of experience professionally while being lost on how to write this study, I feel that the ability to see the process as iterative has become easier.

In considering this project as a critical ethnography, the responsibility to ethically produce a study that “offers insights and illuminates meaning that expand its readers’ experiences” (Merriam, 2009, p. 51) was imperative for the founders and for me. They knew I was completing this type of research for the first time and they knew that my professional skill set would be helpful to them as a participant for the fall semester when I was full-time with them. I am a researcher who will continue to question the way things are and who will never accept a capital “T” truth. Seth and Kara wanted to share the program they created, to explore opportunities for program evolution and critically think about the impact the CIS has on its participants. This chapter explores the context of the CIS and the stories of three students during this study. I begin with the story of how and why the CIS began, focusing on the intentions and purpose explained to me by the founders of the school. I then move to a description of the school and programming, and end with the stories of the students.

Vignette: It Begins

This drive may never get old. A winding two-lane stretch of quiet highway through the

Boise National Forest that has continued to be my gateway to amazing adventures in this beautiful state. The northbound stretch of leaving the Treasure Valley’s urban hustle to arriving at expanses of protected public lands always fills my heart. Today, this journey is taking me through the winding roads along the Payette River in the encasement of dense pines to a new experience and adventure. As the “Free Bird” of bluegrass – officially known as “Wagon

Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show - is blasting throughout my Subaru, I find myself reflecting on how this all began.

Last December, I found myself in the dead of winter on a twenty-five day rafting trip down the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Fifteen of us covered two hundred twenty-five river miles from Lees Ferry to Diamond Creek in zero-degree temperatures with a group unlike any other. It was as magical and beautiful as it was treacherous and idiotic. My way of being a member of this world means connecting with it physically, in experiences like this, in order to maintain perspective about our humanity. Although I had done several long, wild, and crazy outdoor adventures – this one was beyond anything I have ever pushed myself to do before. Twenty-five days gives ample time to get to know those you are traveling with, especially when traveling in a setting that could take your life at any wrong turn. We didn’t know each other before, but we are now deeply connected as a result of this experience. It was this journey that led me to my destination today. A chance encounter with Dan at the bottom of the

Grand Canyon on a raft and kayak inspired this path. The discovery of his job at the Central

Idaho School, the school’s unique intention, and my motivation to see how these experiences in the backcountry could help students understand who they are as citizens of the world, have put me on this road today.

Gone are the days of my weekly commutes to observe the school experiences during the past semester after surviving the winter river trip with Dan and the crew. Gone are the days of designing the purpose for this study with the Central Idaho School. Today’s drive marks a commute that ends with me staying for a full semester of study with the school as a participant researcher – my very first implementation of academic research on a grand scale. I get to immerse myself completely in the culture of this unique semester long program with their second

year of programming. To say I am excited would be an understatement. I hope to understand how students learn more about themselves this fall while understanding their sense of being in this interconnected world. I hope that I can capture this experience…I hope it really is something different…

The CIS Context

Teaching means extending the classroom beyond the four walls of the classroom and the two covers of books. It means immersing students in direct experiences with people and places in order to learn in the context of realistic community situations…Teaching is guiding students on adventures into partially unknown territory. – Clifford Knapp

The Founders: Intention and Purpose

Off the beaten path of Highway-55 near Cascade, Idaho sits a unique school setting. The campus sits on 100 acres of land along the Payette River. Driving up a dirt drive to reach the front gate, visitors feel removed from the rest of the world. The thought and care that has gone into creating this place emerges as soon as you cross through the front gate. Driving down the dirt lane you are met with a big red barn with a yellow school bus parked outside next to the racks of brightly colored kayaks. This barn is also the home of the founders, Seth and Kara.

About a half mile beyond the barn, on the way to the river bank, is the main campus area. There is a trailer set-up as the administration office where day-to-day business takes place. Across the dirt circle are the bath houses (one male and one female), three yurts for student housing, and the new Confluence Building where all learning and activities are held (see Figure 1). Beyond the circle, towards the end of the marked road, are the row house apartments where four staff members live full-time.

Figure 2. Student-housing yurts situated near the Confluence Building where the CIS holds

learning activities (Scales).

Seth and Kara, a married couple, began their journey together for this school just over a decade ago. During their student teaching experiences, they realized that there was a lot missing from what students experience in the traditional school settings where they were both teaching.

Kara is a young, blonde, fit, white female with a strong passion for the outdoors and a supportive family and personal network. She went into teaching and decided to pursue a profession in business after her student teaching. Based on my time spent with her, she is passionate about the opportunities they are able to provide at the CIS for students. However, she is more passionate about leading outdoor trips and building the organization over the academic pursuits and teaching day-to-day. Although we never talked about her family at length, she grew up with enough privilege to be able to explore her passions, travel for outdoor adventures, complete a college degree, and start-up a tuition based educational opportunity with her husband. Her business management skills and passion helped with the organizational development of the CIS start-up.

Seth – a young, fit, white male - went into teaching and wanted to stay in teaching. He always had a dream of owning his own school bus and doing exciting adventures with students.

His student teaching experience and starting years of teaching were with an expeditionary learning charter school in Boise, Idaho. This experience opened his eyes to the power of exploration and ultimately informed the design of the CIS programming using expedition plans and Understanding by Design (UbD) framework (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) for planning. Seth and I never spoke about his extended family or his upbringing, but his passion to start the CIS is contagious and makes anyone who spends time with him feel like any dream is possible.

They secured funding through donations and personal network support in order to buy their 100-acre campus on the Payette River near Cascade, Idaho. They sold their house near downtown Boise and built their new living space in the upstairs of the main barn on the CIS campus. They were committed to starting programming and were ready to leverage their network, recruit families, and bring their semester-long experience for students to life. It was always hard to tell how tough starting the CIS really was because their passion for the project was overwhelming and positive. In hindsight, I should have asked more about the work that was put into starting the school.

Seth and Kara began their journey of developing the CIS in their mid-20’s. At the time of the study, they were in their late-20’s working hard to bring their dream to life. They wanted to provide an opportunity for students to be more connected to their learning and to feel a sense of place and community in the world. They also wanted to provide opportunities for educators to participate in something outside of the way things are in a traditional public school setting. The couple wanted to do something outside-the-box for students and teachers. Seth explained:

The short answer that we jokingly give a lot is that we created the place where we

would’ve wanted to go to school…And so that is the short answer – we created this high

school that would have been great for us. And the shape that it is has taken, I think, could

have gone a number of different ways with different founders, different people at the

helm.

An important part of that outside-the-box vision the founders have stems from when they met in

2001 doing work on the Payette River. They knew, from that shared experience, that utilizing the river and the outdoors was going to be the foundation of learning in the community they created for the school. Seth said:

Outdoor adventure became really apparent. But even that, doing trips in the U.S., is really

neat. But that it [outdoor adventure] was really an avenue to go see the world, right? You

can see the world a lot of ways, but like I said, a different set of founders could have done

this school and could have taken out the outdoor adventure and it could have been

through the arts. You know, seeing the world through the arts. But then for us, it is pretty

amazing to go . . . explore these rivers that really the only way to see them, especially at

water level, is to be in some sort of craft...being on it. And so, for this school, outdoor

adventure provides that avenue that comes through. And then I think it’s impossible not

to, as you are experiencing these things, to want to give back.

Seth and Kara’s board of directors marketed them as the founders of the CIS. In the process of their start-up years, they didn’t stop to think about the implications of the term founders as two white people occupying purchased acreage on the Payette River in Idaho where indigenous communities once lived before the land was occupied by white settlers. The CIS seeks to help students understand their place-based community as well as their connectedness globally as

unique individuals. The programming at the CIS supports and seeks to provide students opportunities to read indigenous narratives, understand their place in Idaho, and learn about the history of the places they visit both locally and globally during their semester experience.

Further, the mission of the CIS is to support students in their ability to give and do good I the world.

That said, the term founders stuck even through cultural exploration of place. I didn’t ask

Seth and Kara about this during the study, and I wish that I had thought to do so. For Seth and

Kara, the business of starting an educational program was their priority and their board of directors calling them founders was not given time to be considered. I believe their life experience at such a young age of starting up the CIS, as well as their background in schooling through a very traditional and predominantly white institution in Boise, did not allow for them to truly have a critical lens in considering the implications of their title. As I reflect on this, I realize that it is common across the nation for individuals to be called founders of organizations where the mission and physical location are in direct conflict with the colonial ideals that are reified by their title. In this study, the term founder(s) will be used to be consistent with the terminology used by the participants to describe themselves in their voice.

As mentioned before, Seth and Kara met doing work on the very river where they decided to build the CIS together. The theme of the river, and their time spent with the river, is a foundation of their belief system and participation as learners. This is shown through the detail of the physical design of their main campus as well as the structures of their semester design stacked with outdoor experiences created to help students see themselves differently as participants in their local and global communities. As mentioned earlier, the experience that Seth had during his time with the expeditionary learning school in Boise informed his approach to

designing the semester-long experience for high school students. Expeditionary learning, now called EL Education (2018), is an educational model with the following vision and mission:

When students and teachers are engaged in work that is challenging, adventurous and

meaningful, learning and achievement flourish. Our mission is to create classrooms

where teachers can fulfill their highest aspirations, and students achieve more than they

think possible, becoming active contributors to building a better world.

The EL Education model serves 152 schools nationally in 30 states impacting over 50,000 students. They serve nearly 60% inner-city, urban schools as well as a blend of charter, traditional, and independent schools in suburban and rural communities. The model is grounded in elements of approaching learning through student-driven experiences while developing leadership skills and environmental stewardship. This experience for Seth pushed the path of the

CIS by informing a starting point for their program development. In researching many leadership and expeditionary models, Seth and Kara built their own foundations – drawing primarily from

Marshall Gantz’ leadership framework from Harvard and EL Education - for the CIS to achieve their mission and vision: We build leaders who positively impact the world.

The founders designed a semester program that uses both academic and outdoor expedition plans to navigate the learning process during a student’s time with the CIS. They developed their Six Foundations—academics, leadership training, outdoor adventure, cultural exchange, service learning, and environmental stewardship— that they believe are the six most important aspects of a students’ learning at the CIS to help shape their development as members of a global society. As Seth states:

For us, the Six Foundations kind of came together as six areas of life that really made our

lives more fulfilling and we like to think that ourselves – and I would imagine that all of

our staff – would also consider themselves lifelong learners. All of the Six Foundations

work together almost every day at [CIS]. For example, when we are down in Chile

students are participating in both cultural exchange and outdoor adventure. They also

create service learning opportunities and when we have that kind of event students are

using their leadership training to design and implement. These foundations are meant to

always be working together to shape the skillsets of our students. This is how we design

our programs and curriculum.

These Six Foundations are the tangible components of the type of critically situated practical experience and exploration of structures of feeling (see Figure 1) the founders want students to experience during their time at the CIS. As Kara shared, “At the [CIS] we talk a lot about living with intention and having the skills to lead your own life and make the choices and take advantage of opportunities that allow you to grow and develop and continue to change yourself.”

This way of being allows for the semester program to take shape organically for the backgrounds, needs, and goals of students who join the CIS community. A critical component of the school design is the incorporation of Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) Understanding by

Design (UbD) model – also used within the EL Education framework. This pedagogical approach to school design and learning is explained in next section to provide a foundational understanding of the format of learning at the CIS.

The Community and Shades of Neoliberalism

Each semester, a new group of fifteen students comes to campus from all over the world to be a member of this unique school community. The Fall 2014 semester was the second full year of programming offered at the CIS. Students included in the analysis of this study are descried in a later section. Families interested in the program recognized the benefits of learning

outside the traditional public school system. Students left their home communities to continue their school requirements while also entering a non-traditional program. The program at the CIS provides each student with a liaison at their home school to ensure that the courses they receive during their semester away meet the requirements for their credits to stay on-track when they return.

The target group for the CIS is students in their Junior or Senior year of high school.

Students leave their homes and move to the CIS for a semester-long experience in learning, leadership, and adventure. The four staff members, along with Seth and Kara, at the CIS play multiple roles throughout each semester experience during the school year. They serve as liaison to the students’ home school communities ensuring that students are on-track with their graduation requirements when they return home after their semester with the CIS. Staff are also liaison to parents through social media updates, mentorship updates, and continued communication. Additionally, the staff facilitate trips, are trained as first responders in the event of an emergency, mentor individual students they were assigned to work with for the semester, support cooking and cleaning crews, plan lessons and units, and make sure the school and expedition experiences ran seamlessly for participants. Further, when the CIS is in Idaho – and not in the backcountry – staff live on campus in apartments. Essentially, a staff member at the

CIS needs to be highly skilled in life, academics, and adventure. A deep exploration of the staff roles is beyond the scope of this study, and therefore was not included. Staff information which directly connected to student meaning making of their sense of being in the world is, however, included. Therefore, the staff are discussed in this study primarily through the two major academic experiences with students, the leadership course framework and the English expedition plan taught by Elle.

Elle, whether she knew it or not, was committed to preparing students for life beyond the established “norm” of today’s educational system under the guise of neoliberalism through her

English course design. Strauss (2013), in a blog post, expresses the common frustration among

CIS staff in the reality of youth being “schooled” systematically in a way that takes them further away from who they are and what it means to be responsible as a human today, or in the future:

Over and over again, reformsters suggest that the only real purpose of an education is to

prepare one for work. You get an education so that you can become useful to your future

possible employers. That’s it. That’s all. Everything that is beautiful and loving and

glorious about human life, everything that resonates in our connections to each other and

the world around us – none of that matters in education. The measure of whether a

subject should be taught is simply, “Will this help the student get a job?” Learning about

everything that is rich and joyful and rewarding in the human experience, everything

about learning to grow and understand and embrace who you are as a human being and

how you make your way in the world – that’s all stuff you can do in your free time, I

guess, if you really want to.

This sentiment was felt deeply among staff and the founders at the CIS. The most crippling realization is that their ability to provide an educational experience for students that allows for the humanity to be present, the battle against inequality to be grappled with, and the impact on a future that cannot possibly be imagined today comes at a tangible cost of $29,000 for tuition.

Even in the ruptures that can provide great impact as a change agent, the roots of the neoliberal rhizome are seemingly impenetrable. In order to provide a different perspective and opportunity for learning among today’s youth, it had to come at a cost compounding even more issues for

Seth and Kara to consider as they continue to build scholarship funds to distribute among students for a better chance of equitable access.

The CIS is representative, in the context of this study, of a rupture. In the case of the CIS, the way the school is designed, the exposure that students have to unique programming that is designed to shift their way of being in the world, and the experiences of local and global expeditions and cultural engagement all provide a disruption to the experience of traditional public schooling. The rupture that the CIS has created “is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 12). The CIS adopts the intellect of Deleuze and

Guattari (1987) as well as Wiebe et al. (2007) as they produce their own curriculum that is designed to be a part of their surroundings (both local and global), as they hire teachers who are outdoor adventure experts - not trained to be a conventional teacher, as they leave space in their day to address their place and the experiences they are having together, as they promote their place as a map of what could be rather than a tracing of what has already been rooted and established in education.

The motto of the school, and one of the themes of this study, is: When we need a classroom, the world awaits. This is embodied and experienced each day. Student learning is based in Google Classroom and they do their work on iPads. Their textbooks for core curriculum classes are eBook versions downloaded to their iPad with annotation applications for active reading and notetaking. During on-campus days in Idaho, there is WiFi access for class work and personal time. When off-campus in the back country, the students receive specific instruction

and dedicated time to save their work and future assignments off line, so they can have class in areas where there is no WiFi or cellular service.

During their time on campus, students follow a schedule and work together to make sure their days run smoothly. Staff monitor groups of students who are assigned a task throughout the week. For example, a staff member may be assigned to kitchen duties for the week where they make sure the student group that is cooking has the food they need, the meals planned, and that everyone is participating together. At the CIS, students and staff focus daily on living a life of intention. This takes shape through bigger concepts in academic and outdoor adventure settings, but it starts with the foundational skills of intention within the school community through daily chores, co-living in yurts, and healthy choices with both food and physical habits.

The Confluence Building is a location on campus that the CIS planned with great care for contributing to the type of learning and community the school wants to foster. The building is centrally located, energy efficient, filled with natural light, has white boards for walls, provides laundry facilities, is the space where everyone gathers for meals and meetings - it is critical to the community of the school. The founders’ vision was that, like the river, this building would be the confluence – or coming together – of learning on campus. In discussing the culture with Seth he shared that:

Some lessons and days go really smoothly, and it works. Others its harder and the stage

right now is pretty neat because like, with you coming here, we are finally having the

resources to where it is possible. So that is going to be really fun over the next few years

to see this all work. And the confluence building is a big part of that because now we

have a PLACE where we can feed everyone together, and we can have a classroom that

opens up into a library, and where we can bring everyone together for a debrief after a

Lower Salmon trip. Everything comes together in this place.

During my first visit, the Confluence Building was still under construction. The classes and community chores and meals were all happening at “the Depot” - a building just outside of their campus grounds. Devon, the math teacher, shared that he and the other teachers “thrive with minimal resources, so working at The Depot wasn’t the worst . . . but it definitely was rough on the expanse of where we could take learning. We were ready to not have science experiments occurring while prepping for lunches in one tiny kitchen!” While the group managed with limited space and resources, they were all incredibly excited to have their Confluence Building ready to go for a more comfortable and consistent learning environment.

A unique element of the Confluence Building that further ties together the theme of the confluence of the river is the stone work on the central fire place in the building (see Figure 2).

People who are a part of the school community (students, families of students, staff, board members, community partners) have donated rocks from their journeys around the world to the stone work to be made into a river running up and around the fireplace. The rocks all have their own story and the result is a rock river reaching a confluence and splitting into new directions.

There has been great care put into the school’s vision of their connection, both emotionally and physically, to the place they have built and the spirit they take with them as they travel and move throughout the world.

Figure 3. The river design built into the stone work of the Confluence Building (Scales).

This concept of the confluence permeates throughout the experience of walking through campus, sitting in class, going on an expedition, talking, and building community together. As shared by Kara, the students are a primary example of a confluence at the CIS:

One of the really neat things . . . is that our students come together from all over. . . the

fact that all these high school students come from all over to here is a real confluence of

ideas and students coming from different backgrounds. This semester is a great example

of that because we have San Francisco, Baton Rouge, Atlanta, some students from here in

Idaho - I think three from Boise, two from Cascade, and one from McCall. And

amazingly, even the students that come from like Boise High (pause) none of those

students really were friends or knew each other. And so, all these students are self-

selecting. . . I think more at the root of it [their decision to apply] is a sort of, ummm,

I don’t want to use the word dissatisfaction with their current education system because

I think a lot of them go to schools they enjoy and are looking forward to going back. But

I think it is definitely a willingness to accept that maybe there is something different

out there where they can really challenge themselves. And so, I really like that they can

come together from all over. It’s been pretty cool to see that happen.

With each semester comes a confluence of new minds from all over the world to participate in learning. The curriculum at the CIS has been developed by the staff and founders. The curriculum draws from AP and honors level courses in the public system but allows the freedom to write-in more critical pedagogy that keeps students’ minds engaged and outside the confines of standards-based skill learning. The school, however, still faces institutional barriers and restrictions on their freedom because of the process of accreditation and alignment with students’ home schools after their one semester experience at the CIS.

The unique aspect of making the world their classroom affords students a connection to place that is far different from their experience in any other school setting. The ability to learn while traveling, playing, sharing in chores, and cooking promotes the development of a lifelong learner that is unparalleled. Staff attempt to merge content areas and activities as much as possible to help students understand the interconnectedness of their learning experiences. One teacher shared an interdisciplinary learning experience that he and Elle, the English teacher, put together for the students as they continued their lessons during their cultural exchange in Chile:

Blog Entry (March 11, 2014): The last couple weeks have consistently required

students to practice flexibility and patience as we navigate power outages and changing

plans. One thing that has not wavered has been the level of thoughtfulness that students

have brought to class. I’ll start with the collaborative class that the English teacher and

I taught last Saturday. (We have dubbed our joint efforts Spumaniteam in honor of

the Spanish and Humanities intersection.) Fundamentally we set out to answer the

question of how we interpret the world, questioning the truth of perceptual experiences as

simple as tasting peanut butter. (Students enjoyed the chance to sample a familiar staple

in the meantime.) With this creative and critical thinking in mind, I have been asking

students in history to build off their “What if?” essays to continue to think critically about

the world around them. In World History we read two formative and contrasting texts

(Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto) and analyzed

and debated them. The thoughtfulness with which [three of our students] approached

the questions of how to shape society and economics made me very hopeful for when

the three of them take over the world . . . While exploring these fundamental economic

texts and theories, students also enjoyed the chance to participate in a simulated stock

market, and you all will be thrilled to know that they are all in the green! Still, we want to

see some more lasting results before we shell out a real thousand dollars to each of

them…

In this blog post, the collaborating teachers discuss the power of experience for students to enhance their ability to critically think not only about what they are doing but also the way it shapes who they are as a learner. There is some admitted privilege among teachers as they get to work with high achieving and driven students and that they are able to be creative in digging deep into rich text and thoughtful participation in learning. However, as Freire (1970) shares about his view on critical pedagogy, “. . . people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves” (p. 83). This view speaks to the potential of each human, regardless of their nurtured ability, to have the capacity to learn well if critically taught well. This does not mean that all days, and all lessons, at the CIS are perfect; it does mean that the collective belief system of connected and critical learning

experiences among the staff promotes a common goal of emergence through critically situated education (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016).

It is nearly impossible not to take part of what the school has to offer with you when you leave. As bell hooks (2009) shares in her book belonging: a culture of place, “We resist acknowledging that our constants exist within a framework where everything is always changing. We resist change” (p. 25). When you live the everyday in our global society there is a disconnect for most humans from their place and their acknowledgment of the rhizomatic motion of nature itself. The CIS has found a way to work within their rhizome, a liminal space between nature and curriculum, to implement a pedagogical approach to experiencing academics and expeditions.

Privilege and Cultural Emergence at the CIS

Each student who attended the CIS during the time of this study was there because they felt like they needed something new and fresh. They all want to become leaders in their communities who are well equipped to create, implement, and sustain action-based movements as a global citizen when they go home. This concept of global citizenship was often rooted in the students’ understanding of this term as it is defined in their home school community. For example, one female student was thinking of herself as a global citizen because she traveled to

Mexico for vacation with her family and did a one-day volunteer experience with a local business. Another student, Ryan, considered himself a global citizen because his dad was in business in the Bay Area in California and he grew up in a home with many visitors from China and Korea who exposed their family to cultural and language differences. Their families or school-setting provided experiences that caused students to question who they are and who they want to be in the world. Further, these experiences came from the privilege of being able to

afford traveling as a family and to have a position in business in one of the nation’s wealthiest economic markets. Ultimately, the questions that came from these experiences in their home environment led students to seek an opportunity that let them have autonomy over their own experience of being people of the world.

This issue of privilege as access to the global is a common theme throughout each member of the CIS community. The fall cohort had only two international students (a girl from

Brazil and a young man from Chile) and only one scholarship student – Shantyl. Although family socio-economic situations were never disclosed by any staff members, adolescents shared their “where I come from” stories with each other in the yurts. Some families sent care packages or left their child with a credit card number to shop online anytime they wanted. Some families flew to Idaho to visit during drop-off, mid-semester parent’s weekend, and at pick-up/graduation.

The brands of gear that some students packed sparked conversations about the cost and quality of name brands such as Patagonia versus Columbia. The founders and staff thought they created a setting that erased those cultural and social issues of where each student comes from by focusing on communal living, sustainable living practices, equitable campus chores, and back country experiences. They thought the setting and structures of the program would take away the issues of brands, social experiences, and social status. What the founders failed to realize was that their background as white, privileged individuals created a barrier to critically thinking about what it means to bring cultures together and the inherent issues of equality within a place where cultures are merging.

Greuenwald (2008) discusses the challenges associated with place-based experiences with cultural merging. Culture in this context can be defined by Williams (1977) as “the ordinary expression of daily life: not as something fixed, but rather as shared norms and associated

structures of feeling that are difficult to see, examine, or intentionally change” (McKenzie &

Bieler, 2016, p. 11). At the CIS, individuals are joining in shared living environments from their home cultures where a dominant narrative and way of being existed. By bringing these cultural identities into the CIS where a dominant culture prevails as a school experience, it is inevitable that challenges will arise as the community begins to emerge from their dominant cultural backgrounds. For the founders, building a culture that they felt would work best at the CIS each semester has foundational elements such as the 10 Elements of Literature, outdoor expeditions, and mentorship that assume all other cultural backgrounds would merge into this way of being smoothly. What was still being considered during my time with the CIS in only their first full year of implementation of the program was the dissonance between dominant narratives from global cultural contexts creating a more dynamic and fluid way of building an emergent culture every time a new cohort came to the semester experience. Williams (1977), goes on to describe this process in relation to structures of feeling that are explored in this chapter through personal experience, growth, and developing a sense of being. Specifically, these structures of feeling are the “meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt, and the relations between these and formal or systematic beliefs” (p. 132). With all students in this study, especially Shantyl, the dominant culture at the CIS felt oppressive and removed from her lived experience in Memphis.

The assumed privilege in the form of technical skills, economic access, and material needs for gear was an element of programming that the founders were figuring out - along with more equitable cost for the semester program - throughout the time of this study.

While this issue of privilege as access to the global could have been detrimental to the semester experience, the staff continued to try and find ways to help students move past these differences. Putting students into extreme survival situations during their backcountry

expeditions, required students to support each other no matter what. By intentionally grouping experiences to consistently shake-up the tendency for social groups to form in such a small group of students the inclusivity fostered by teamwork during backcountry expeditions helped neutralize the differences that came from student backgrounds. “Diversity without community signals a lack of any kind of collective action. Community without diversity is a harbinger for intellectual and cultural stagnation” (Theobald and Siskar, 2008, p. 197). The ultimate goal of the

CIS program is to help students evolve as individuals through their experiences and to be critical about the world around them and the community they choose to be a part of in their future. Being a member of the CIS culture being developed together, is something that helped to bring students together and find strengths in differences as a community.

Pedagogy with Understanding by Design (UbD) and Critical Situated Education

The implementation of expeditionary learning at the CIS is a driving force to the experience for students to learn beyond the walls of the traditional classroom and embrace the school’s motto: When we need a classroom, the world awaits. In some subject areas, this is difficult due to the requirements of the students’ program of study from their home school as well as college readiness standards. However, in the English and leadership courses, this framework proved to be incredibly powerful in shaping the student learning experience. Utilizing

Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, all academic planning is done in the format of an expedition plan. The CIS does all of the planning as an open source to all instructors in a shared Google Doc with links to each expedition plan for each content area and class being offered. The questions within this framework push staff to critically engage students through their situated experiences to make bigger connections and grow as an

individual and cultural group throughout their semester experience. Critical questions to guide planning include, but are not limited to:

1. Where are your students headed? Where have they been? How will you make sure the

students know where they are going?

2. What events will help students experience and explore the big idea and questions in

the expedition? How will you equip them with needed skills and knowledge?

3. How will you cause students to reflect and rethink? How will you guide them in

rehearsing, revising, and refining their work?

4. How will you help students to exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills,

knowledge, and understanding throughout the expedition?

5. How will you organize and sequence the learning activities to optimize the

engagement and achievement of ALL students?

The CIS also uses the UbD framework for the students’ leadership course the founders teach and the outdoor expedition plans the staff developed. They frame everything surrounding the learning for these students in a way that continuously reinforces a particular way of knowing as students work through each expedition in an intentionally situated experience of learning..

Similar to the spiral (see Figure 1) of critically situated education from McKenzie and

Bieler (2016), the power in UbD exists in the cyclic nature of its development. As Dewey (1938) states, “Unless the given experience leads out into a field of previously unfamiliar, no problems arise, while problems are the stimulus to thinking . . . The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented. The process is a continuous spiral” (pp. 82-87). This philosophy of the pedagogical approach of UbD is the greatest strength while at the same time the greatest difficulty in implementation. At the CIS, the

staff are creating unit plans to meet standards by providing texts, artifacts, and experiences to be used by the students. The students learning process through the expeditions inherently create variables within the planning process that require the educator to continuously revisit the pathway that leads students to the desired outcome. The work done by Elle, the English teacher, is a strong example of this framework supporting student growth and self-discovery. In academic and backcountry expedition plans this process is never ending which creates a great deal of work for everyone involved but, in the evidence provided by this study, exceeds the expectations of the desired outcome in instances where the implementation of UbD is truly embraced.

As students at the CIS explored and critiqued their development of self in a globalized world they embraced the process of dynamic cultural impacts. McKenzie and Bieler (2016) take on the concept of culture as something that cannot be fixed, but rather shared as it grows and becomes more interconnected and complex within a setting or settings. The design of the CIS semester has the potential to embrace the dynamic nature of culture in a particular educational setting. By exploring the impact of UbD with the English curriculum across student experience the study exposes the power this pedagogical approach brings to students’ critical educational experience. McKenzie and Bieler (2016) describe the intention and outcomes related to experience-based learning well:

Rather than allowing social dimensions of experience to operate implicitly as pedagogical

practice, we can draw students’ attention to this component of their own learning and

critical capacity, as well as in relation to social change, more broadly. Students may then

be in a better position to recognize the social productivities in their current lives and

identities as well as to catalyze and sustain forms of relational solidarity in their future

lives and work contexts. (pp. 58-59)

Although the staff at the CIS are providing learners with experiences that provide connections to the lives of the individual, there are still limitations to the success of the program. One of those limitations is the semester time-line for students at the CIS. Students only spend five months at the CIS before they return to their home cultural setting that has had more impact on their sense of being over longer periods of time. Many of these settings are typical to the neoliberal agenda that puts people “in political and economic climates in which short-sighted visions for economic growth have largely collapsed other considerations of human and planetary health” (McKenzie and Bieler, 2016, p. 3). Although students are sometimes enlightened through cultural experiences and the pedagogical design that allows for their sense of being to evolve differently, it may not be enough – or may not be acknowledged by students until other life experiences occur to inspire connectivity to this short-term CIS experience. Throughout the discussion of data, student work and experiences are shared to show how these opportunities provided the connectivity between life and learning the CIS was hoping to accomplish.

Building Community at the CIS

I returned to campus with the rest of the staff the night before student arrivals for the fall semester cohort. We were on an expedition as a staff group to review safety protocols, co-ed high school camping rules, and wilderness first responder emergency protocols. This was a typical experience for backcountry trip leaders. In my past experience, I was always in the leadership position of planning, implementing, and debriefing an expedition with a group of individuals. This semester, I had to learn how to participate in the culture of the CIS with their backcountry protocols as a leader in the event of need and also as a participant researcher.

Knowing the variables involved in outdoor expedition, the staff and I knew that this would be a difficult line to draw for me while in the backcountry. After a successful three-day norming expedition involving lightening, a flash hail storm, and a hike-out with incredible views of sunshine and wildflowers (Mother Nature’s way of apologizing for the treacherous weather conditions of the previous days), we were ready to meet the students that would kick-off year two of the CIS semester programming.

The incoming cohort of students arrived from Atlanta, Tennessee, Texas, California,

Idaho, Washington, New York, Brazil, and Chile. We were notified in the morning that our group of fifteen students was now down to thirteen. One student broke her shoulder and was recovering from surgery, which would make it impossible to participate in the backcountry expeditions, and another student fell ill and would not be able to make it to campus before the first outdoor expedition. Even with the loss of two students, we were still excited. As parents came to deliver their students, you could feel their nervousness. They were leaving their students in what felt like the middle of nowhere in Idaho – a state that most people overlook on a map – with a group of twenty-somethings (no staff or staff member were over the age of 28) who are going to keep their children safe in the wilderness while keeping-up with their rigorous college- bound academic path at their home school. As students began to unload their gear and pick their bunks in the gendered yurts (two for the females and one for the males), I watched the staff members make parents and families feel welcomed and comfortable as they entered this new journey with the CIS. As hours passed, the parents trickled away and students met in the

Confluence Building for their introduction meeting and dinner.

Staff set the tone for the semester by modeling the behavior expectations in the

Confluence Building. “This is where everything comes together for us as a CIS family! That’s

right, we will all become a tight family this semester through the experiences we are about to have!” Elle, wearing her shiny gold lamé skirt with a CIS staff polo and Chaco sandals, was standing on the fireplace ledge announcing this to the group as the rest of the staff each took a station in the dining area. “Take it away, D!” Elle, the resident English teacher exclaimed with a game-show dramatized gesture with her hands towards the kitchen. The new group of students hustled closer to the kitchen area to hear and see a tour of the facility they would be cooking in for the coming months together in small groups for each meal. Students at the CIS are assigned to a group that is their team for support duties on campus (cleaning, kitchen and cooking, laundry, bathrooms, waste management, etc.). Students rotate with these groups each week to share duties and responsibilities for the CIS community. These groups also help support various aspects of planning and implementation of habits in the backcountry together during expeditions off-campus.

As the tour of the Confluence Building (the classrooms, library space, study nooks, bathrooms, cleaning supplies, etc.) ended, the founders brought out dinner in their tradition of

“family style” for all to share. The staff strategically sat mixed within already forming student clicks to facilitate getting-to-know-you conversations and to promote expectations of manners at the table. It became apparent to me that this was quite like my years of facilitating groups of strangers through summer camp and other nonprofit organizations. The energy and buzz of the staff set the entire tone for the semester in the first family dinner. It was amazing to watch the fluidity of this among staff as an observer – I never realized how useful the energy, tactic, and animated walk-through of rules could be for a new group of learners. I also couldn’t help but notice the trends of adolescent, co-ed experiences. It made me reflect on how intimidating it is in today’s society to live in a yurt with complete strangers, push comfort zones academically and

physically, partake in chores that you may never have been responsible for in your home, and to navigate social relationships with people from different backgrounds and genders. To be vulnerable as a teenager is tough, and to do so with strangers in a setting specifically designed for you to evolve as a leader in a global society by critically questioning yourself and the world around you…well, that takes someone special.

The arrival day experiences, learning the structures of yurt life and life in the Confluence

Building, helped to create a map for existing at the CIS. These rules, or foundational ways of being on-campus, help to create order out of chaos and to facilitate students’ ability to work together with a sense of community. Foucault (1966) tells us that “In any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only one ‘episteme’ that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in theory or silently invested in practice” (p. 168). In the case of the CIS, the episteme – or system of understanding that shape the knowledge of the culture – is expeditionary learning. Every structure, experience, and pedagogical notion at the

CIS is rooted in the framework of an expedition whether it be an academic expedition, a backcountry expedition, or a cultural expedition in the practice of cultural expectations on/off campus. This system of knowing and understanding the world around these students is firmly grounded in the format of these expeditionary experiences.

Exploring Leadership

After surviving the first night in yurts, away from families, and in a totally new rhythm of existence with a group of strangers, the students made it through their first family breakfast and onto their leadership course. A part of the founders’ vision for the CIS was to have students engage in leadership training through a course that is designed to help students build skills that are sustainable in whatever community they identify with in their lifetime. These skills are

motivated by the 10 Elements of Leadership: Character, Technical Proficiency, 360 Degree

Thinking, Resiliency and Resourcefulness, Communication Skills, Accurate Awareness,

Personal Leadership and Follow-through, Community Membership and Service, Inspiring

Vision, and Continual Learning and Improvement. Throughout the semester, each student’s mentee provides feedback on their growth in the 10 Elements of Leadership through a feedback rubric. I asked Riley, a student who was always willing to talk with me about her experiences throughout the semester, to tell me about her connection with these leadership skills and feedback.

“You know, it’s kinda cool. I came here because I want to be a better person and I want to contribute to the world. My school in Georgia isn’t helping me do that. They want me to volunteer for a check-list of hours for graduation, but, like, what does that even mean?” Riley continued, “I just want to work towards something great that really brings people together.

Getting my leadership skills built here with practice with my peer group and with our teachers feels pretty cool.” Riley expressed a sentiment that was shared by the rest of the group for the semester. Each student came looking for something that was missing from their daily life back home, and this leadership element seemed to be one of those things.

“How many of you have ever created a project that you actually finished, all by yourself, that made a difference?” There was silence in the room. Not a single student raised their hand as they exchanged anxious glances back and forth. “No one?” The founder, Seth, allowed for a dramatic pause. “Well, that is what we are going to do here. Your goal is to practice leadership skills with each expedition with our coaching and produce your own project to take home to your community that you come from.” Students were still listening attentively, but I could feel their anxiety building around this big idea of a project. “This project has to be sustainable, it has to be

something that supports the community holistically, and it needs to be something you implement for the semester after our time together here.” Students, at this point, started mumbling to each other and then the founders shifted their class to defining the framework for this Culminating

Leadership Project (CLP).

As with the English expedition plans, the CLP followed a framework of a journey for the students. Students had a tangible path to guide their journey from who they are now, to who they could be in the future as a leader. Specifically, the CLP is built around the concept of a public story: “The Story of Self, The Story of Us, and the Story of Now” as presented by Dr. Marshall

Ganz from Harvard University. This framework guided the students at the CIS to find purpose in their journey as a growing leader and to create impactful, sustainable change in their community.

Ganz (2007) believes that “Stories not only teach us how to act – they inspire us to act. Stories communicate our values through the language of the heart, our emotions. And it is what we feel

– our hopes, our cares, our obligations – not simply what we know that can inspire us with the courage to act”. I watched students from the previous semester struggle through the formation of their projects, and I watched this cohort do the same. Many students do not finish their projects once they return home – it is too much work with their daily life, they are too anxious about it, they aren’t willing to commit the time, or they get home and find it easier to conform to their old ways than to continue to push themselves to evolve as an individual.

Each experience students had during their time at CIS contributed to their leadership skills growing and their courage to create something to inspire change in a community stronger.

Whether or not students chose to continue that growth upon returning home is something increasingly difficult to track for the founders. Seth made the point that “It is tough to know that we put all of this work into a growth experience for these students and we have no way of

knowing if it matters years down the road.” I reminded him that most teachers always feel this way. You witness greatness with these students while you are coaching and guiding their student-driven experience of growth, but you may never know what that means to them for the rest of their life.

McKenzie and Bieler (2016), in their work on critical education, bring into question what it really takes to make experiences like what is happening at the CIS impactful long-term with sustainable impact on a future cultural evolution. They recognize that “integrated and comprehensive approaches are needed to equip learners to respond to the intersecting challenges that comprise the social, economic, and environmental conditions of our times” (p. 5) in a neoliberal era. Their work suggests that a year or more can bring this type of sustainability of cultural impact and change. In structure, the experience at the CIS fits the one-year mark by working with students for one semester together on campus and one semester for the CLP work after students return home. With the obvious challenges to get students to complete their CLP and stay connected with the CIS after their semester experience, it is hard to know the impact of the CIS on their lives.

Seth, Kara, and staff worry about this every day. They reflect, iterate, and continue to make their semester a dynamic experience that can help students realize who they are and what their ethical responsibility is in the world. The leadership course allows for students to practice skills that can develop their ability to be responsive and responsible. As Barad (2012) shares:

Responsibility, then, is a matter of the ability to respond. Listening for the response of the

other and obligation to the other, who is not entirely separate from what we call the self.

This way of thinking ontology, epistemology, and ethics together makes for a world that

is always already an ethical matter (p. 69).

The episteme of expeditionary learning with modeling and practice built-in for student growth is a powerful element within the CIS semester. However, for a generation of students who have been born into a neoliberal agenda, a nation that has been at war and in economic crisis for their entire lifetime, communities that have completely failed to meet the basic survival needs of citizens – particularly marginalized populations, and unimaginable technological advancements, this approach to learning comes with a lot of emotional investment by the students and staff along the way.

The CIS Journey Through Three Stories

It is by looking upon the land not as its possessor but as its companion . . . We would have to memorize and remember the land, walk it, eat from its soils and from the animals that ate its plants. We would have to know its winds, inhales its airs, observe the sequence of its flowers in the spring and the range of its birds. – Barry Lopez

Introduction

Throughout the semester, students were exposed to many experiences and opportunities.

Some of those experiences are not being shared at the request of the founders or the participants.

This section focuses on three students and their individual journeys over the course of their semester at the CIS. Each student developed their sense of being in the world through different aspects of the CIS experience. McKenzie and Bieler (2016) focus on practical experience and learning opportunities at the intersection of the social, narrative, and place. At this intersection of the social, narrative, and place, Williams’ (1977) identifies structures of feeling or “actively lived meanings, feelings, and thoughts that characterize a particular place and time” (pp. 128-135).

These concepts are defined by McKenzie and Bieler (2016) as critical situated education. By exploring the CIS experience as a critical situated place of learning, each student had the opportunity to grow as it relates to their lived experience in the dominant culture (where they

came from), the culture they were building with their peers at the CIS, and the emergence of how they will participate in the world around them when they leave the CIS.

For each of the three students featured in this study, their individual ruptures are different because of their varied backgrounds and experiences, but their rhizomes converge at the CIS.

For each of the students being discussed in this study, their first convergence of the rhizome was from the rupture they each had in their respective home communities that sparked the decision to come to the CIS. The start of their journey at the CIS is where each of the stories begin. The following section includes an exploration of the CIS experience for Riley, Shantyl, and Ryan and a brief discussion of the three themes that emerged from their experiences.

The first theme that emerged is when you need a classroom the world awaits. This was the motto of the CIS and a bold and common thread throughout the experiences of students.

Through analysis of student work, observation, and experience with the CIS, this motto emerged as a theme. The traditional model of schooling that students had experienced provided little to no interaction with the world around them to connect learning to applied knowledge. At the CIS, students were able to experience the world around them in a physical and intellectual way that allowed for the world to be their classroom.

The rupture for each individual to grow their rhizome of interconnectivity in the world was different for each student. For the students in this study, they all experienced a rupture by disrupting their normal schooling experience when they chose to attend the CIS. This rupture brought them together to a place where they could begin to expand their rhizome and grow in different ways. A first step to this growth is giving youth a voice and a safe place to develop their individuality. This leads to the second theme of the study – the development of students’ sense of

being in the world. Throughout these stories you will read about examples that describe how this emerged for each of the three students in the study.

The third theme is leadership as rupture. The CLP in tandem with the experiences in the backcountry for student-driven leadership were two critical components of the CIS experience.

Through the leadership course, students were mentored in elements of leadership that created a strong foundation for them to grow through experience. Riley, Ryan, and Shantyl all came to the

CIS with different backgrounds and were all able to show growth in their leadership abilities throughout the course of the semester. The rupture of leadership led to incredible growth for each student in this study as they explored their sense of being in the world.

These themes are woven throughout each story and are discussed in a reflection at the end of this chapter. There is no explicit discussion or cross analysis of these themes between stories. Each student’s story will begin with a vignette connecting my researcher positionality to that individual. It will continue with their, weaving in elements of how these three themes were seen – or not seen – in their CIS experience. This chapter will end with a brief discussion of the stories before leading into the conclusion where implications and emergence from this study are shared.

Vignette for Riley: Hold onto your soul and don’t let it go

It was a beautiful morning for a quick run before the day started on campus. Somehow, throughout the weeks with the CIS, I have consistent energy before sunrise and have found myself getting up to run along the river as the sun is coming up. I do wonder if this shift in my biological habits has anything to do with being increasingly more connected with nature in everything I am doing. I came around the bend to hustle up a low-grade hill before getting back to the area where the yurts are located. At this hour, Seth and Kara’s dogs and my dog Franklin

are the only creatures out and about. This morning, I came around the same bend surprised to see Riley sitting and watching the sunrise with her journal. She flagged me down, so I stopped by the southeast facing porch to say, “good morning.” I told her I was surprised to see her awake so early and she said she just felt like she had to be outside to clear her head before the day started. I could relate.

Riley had found growth and peace in journaling for her querencia assignments throughout the term. It was clear to me that she had a lot on her mind as she talked to me that morning about connecting all of her experiences at home to her experiences with the CIS. She is always a curious person, but today she was trying to make sense of all of her questions and curiosities. It made me think about the type of person I think Riley is…she wants to do something bigger than herself and she believes people are inherently good. I love this about her. Somehow,

I have had to remind myself that there is good in the world and that we are able to create meaningful and lasting positivity in the world around us. Why does that sense of positivity fade as you get older? Is it because I have lived among and seen devastating things? Is it because I have experienced cruelty towards others and towards me? Is it because I had my heart broken by the world just enough times to not fully have the ability to heal? I don’t know exactly how the cynic in me raised its ugly head, but Riley has helped me to heal a little piece of my heart throughout this semester. She doesn’t know this, of course. But it’s true.

Spending time with Riley that morning, just chatting about the things she questions about the world around her and the ideas she has about the future inspired me. I told her that, and she laughed at me – rolling her eyes. That morning, I was reminded of two things that had been shared with me in my life. One was a story about a river where children kept jumping in without knowing how to swim and being swept away in the current. After noticing this, adults from the

village jumped in to try and save the children…but they too were swept away in their impulsive attempt. One day, as this pattern continued, one of the adults walked away from the tragedy of the river to return to the village. Several adults called after him, “Why are you leaving? Where are you going? We must save our children!” And the person responded as he continued toward the village, “Must we? How can we save the children if we don’t understand why they are coming to the river or who is sending them here?” The people around him paused to ponder this thought and continued to try to save the children.

I love this story because it shows so much of human nature. The frivolous and impulsive behavior to have an immediate fix to a situation – no matter the cost. Don’t we see this in so many ways in the world around us? What about the person who walked towards the village to understand? This person is the Riley of the world – the person who wants to understand the root of the problem in order to shift sustainable change in the world and save the future of the village, not just the moment. This is the person I hope to be – and this is the story I remember when I feel myself caving to the cynic in me. The second thing that the morning with Riley reminded me of was that it is ok to have your heart broken by the world. A wise woman once told me that in order to truly impact transformational change you must find what breaks your heart most in the world and then put your efforts to find ways to understand, explore, develop, and heal this part of humanity – whatever it takes. This advice and wisdom seem nearly impossible some days, but it is powerful and perhaps the only way that humanity can get out of its own way.

Riley: “The places I experience are my sense of being.”

Riley, a white female from an affluent area in Atlanta, Georgia, arrived as a seemingly privileged and happy young lady. She jumped out of the car in front of the Confluence Building at the CIS with extreme excitement, her long blonde ponytail bouncing wildly as she started to

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grab her bags out of the back seat. Riley is a soccer player and had the tan and athletic build to show it. When she arrived, she immediately wanted to pick her bunk in the yurt, get to know everyone around her, and start to build relationships. She chose to come to the CIS to experience the outdoors, travel internationally, and find a way to meaningfully contribute to the world. Riley attended the CIS semester with two of her friends. The girls knew each other from their traveling soccer team and were friends for years. Riley wanted to branch out from what she knew, “I came here to experience things differently. I love my friend, but I want to be able to make new friends and try new things here.” Riley reminded me of myself in high school – always wanting to push her comfort zone with new experiences of learning, but also wanting to hold tight to where she comes from. There were several experiences that pushed Riley to think about who she wants to be and how she wants to leave the semester experience. Riley’s personal growth was a struggle through each expedition. One example of this struggle surrounded the spirit of giving to others.

Because of her background, she had always been exposed to volunteerism as a way to “help those who have less” through a one-time experience with a sense of service that was fleeting.

The leadership course for Riley created a space for her to reflect on her own assumptions of what it means to be a community member and to question her own belief system that traditionally perpetuated a binary of the “haves” and the “have nots”. She ended her time at the CIS expanding her social outreach and producing a meaningful culminating leadership project.

Riley found importance in each of the experiences she encountered at the CIS. Each of her assignments submitted for the English and Leadership courses were motivated by her awareness of the places around her. She utilized the experiences in a place-based setting to draw greater meaning and connections to the world outside of her physical place. When considering the ultimate goal of the design of the CIS experience she truly found connectedness between the

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places she had been, the places she was during the semester, and the impact this all has on the places she will – or could be – in the future.

Riley: “I am not the only living organism in the world”

It was up to the staff to provide unique connections to the experience the students had in their outdoor adventure with the experiences they needed in their academic courses. The most impactful connections made for students during this study came from the English curriculum developed by Elle. Like the journeys that the students had together throughout the semester, the assignments and readings in their English class directly reflected the concept of the journey. For each step of the academic experience in English class, students engaged in a connected physical experience in their outdoor adventure that allowed their understanding of knowledge being taught to be transferable to both academic and social areas of their life. This experience for students was the most informative for their understanding and growth as individuals – Riley, in particular.

Elle began planning for this semester by setting the end goal and planning to meet that goal through building connections and academic experiences with the students’ environment at the CIS. In Elle’s written expedition plan she states:

We will make sure to spend time outside and build off of our own experiences (sharing

where we come from) before digging deep into skills building and more challenging

readings/discussions. I want them to know from the beginning that this is not a typical

English class and that they will be thinking outside of the box/classroom throughout the

semester. I also want to strongly set the tone for personal exploration and growth,

challenging comfort zones, establishing our classroom as a ‘safe space’ community, and

encouraging consistent connection building between our texts and the ‘texts’ around us.

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By starting the semester with students being exposed to places of learning that are atypical to their experience inside the four walls of a classroom, the culture is established so that learning can – and should – happen anywhere, at all times, and in many ways. In Elle’s expedition plan for English, the students had their first experience with understanding the power of place in their learning through a written assignment sharing their connection to a place in their journal.

Learning at the CIS is unique because it requires a connection to place that is not traditional for most learning environments. During the first week of classes, students were on- campus in Idaho discovering their role in their new community. The sense of place as a tool for learning was new for every student. None of the thirteen participants had ever taken an academic class outside or utilized a digital format on their iPad while on a backcountry expedition. As an introduction to help students connect with their sense of place, Elle (the English teacher) tasked the students with a study of querencia. Students read excerpts from Rediscovery of North

America by Barry Lopez (1990). In his discussion of the concept of querencia in the book, he pushes the reader to acknowledge the privilege of their place and their sense of being within that place:

I would like to take this word querencia beyond its ordinary meaning and suggest that it

applies to our challenge in the modern world, that our search for a querencia is both a

response to threat and a desire to find out who we are. And the discovery of a querencia,

I believe, hinges on the perfection of a sense of place. A sense of place must include…

knowledge of what is inviolate about the relationship between a people and the place they

occupy…and how the destruction of this relationship, or the failure to attend to it,

wounds people.

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For many students and staff, the idea of acknowledging the relationship that must be intentional between people and the place they occupy was completely new. It became a motivator for students when they were asked to reflect on their experiences and exploration of self in the backcountry. Elle designed this expedition plan to explore the impact of place on the understanding of oneself. The guiding questions of the unit included concepts like “How does my ‘place’ (environment) impact my understanding of myself?” and “How do I build a ‘sense of place’? Is it important?” These questions, and the accompanied readings from Barry Lopez,

Rebecca Solnit, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Wendell Berry, and other American writers, drove this querencia exploration.

During the second week of courses, Elle introduced the concept of querencia and the importance of understanding place. Students had come prepared with their readings for context, and Elle took the class time to understand how prepared students were to experience place – and nature – differently than they had before the CIS. I sat behind Riley in class that day as an observer.

“Riley, tell us about a time you have spent connecting with the world around you.” Elle walked casually over to where we were sitting as she was making the rounds to address every student with this request.

“Umm…” Riley paused for a brief moment before admitting, “I’m not sure I have really…connected that is. At least not in the way that Lopez describes. I definitely haven’t tried to be one with the environment where I come from.” She was confident in her answer and had an earnest in her voice that told me she wanted to have that experience, but the dominant culture of where she comes from hadn’t given space for her to explore this concept.

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Elle smiled, tapped Riley’s shoulder acknowledging she had been heard, and continued on to the next student. After a few minutes of discussing the entry point everyone had from their personal life experience to the task of exploring querencia, students were asked to go pick a spot on campus that would be their place to connect with through a series of journal entries. Elle wanted them to have consistent exploration of place with a micro-location to practice the concept of querencia.

“You may think this is a wild ask, but when I say connect with this micro-location that speaks to you, I mean connect.” Students were listening intently as they always do with Elle.

“Get right down into the earth and speak to it!” Elle crouched down as she said this with her arms spread wide as if she was hugging the earth and her ear tilted toward the floor in a gesture of listening to the world. “Go explore and write about this first time connecting for me to feel the experience alongside you.” Elle gestured everyone out of the room, and she followed them to explore and walk around outside.

The exploration of Riley’s sense of being at the CIS began with her first Querencia

Journal assignment. She wandered out of the Confluence Building and walked straight to a spot near the river about 500 feet from campus. She was just far enough away to feel removed from the normal campus culture, but not so far as to leave it behind. She stood there for several minutes, looking around, opening her eyes, closing her eyes with her head tilted up to the sky, and then took a seat against a tree stump to start writing:

My sense of place gives me a feeling where I know who I am and can collect all of my

chaotic and tangled thoughts that swallow and interrogate my mind on a daily basis. This

concept represents my idea of querencia. It is in the time we give ourselves that comforts

us and gives us a moment to reflect on all we have done . . . In my opinion, gratitude for

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nature comes with experience from the outdoors and living in a way in which nature

leads you. Saying this, I am suggesting that I clench my eyes shut and fall back into the

natural world like a trust fall. I struggle with trying to call the shots for myself all of the

time. Let the world around us guide you. Take time each day to look at what surrounds

you and listen to what it has to say . . . a querencia is a specific piece of land that you

connect with, but I think one of the most important factors of a querencia is the ability to

define it yourself.

Riley’s querencia begins reflecting on the key elements of Lopez’s definition. She identifies that the place she is occupying has a story to share and her relationship with that place can help define her sense of being. Her reference to a trust fall shows that she can bring human experience and emotions into nature in order to let nature guide her understanding of surroundings and self.

In her writing, Riley starts to identify her role in the world and what it means to occupy a place.

Specifically, she sees connection in how critical it is to understand and pay attention to the way you connect with the world around you. Her querencia continues:

My sense of place and comfort of finding who I am originates from realizing that I am

not the only living organism in the world . . . this is how we will unearth and discover our

purpose in the world both as individuals, and as a whole. I realized how many other

things surrounded me when I leaned against the log next to the river and examined each

and every object and life that encompassed me and realized each and every purpose in its

own place . . . What could be more healing than knowing where your place is? . . .

Riley describes herself as being “not the only living organism in the world” which shows her perspective of connecting as a part of nature to the world around her. By defining her querencia as Lopez (1990) suggests as just a singular place, she wasn’t content. She needed to see beyond

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that one place and her connectedness on a more global scale. Jickling and Sterling (2017) discuss the impact of connecting with your environment through education and acknowledge the power that Riley is experiencing: “As humans, we have the capacity to feel, empathize, love, and mourn loss. When we lose these qualities, we are reduced. When we are reduced this way, things slip by us. We need to pay attention . . . creating educational experiences that are held, felt, and disruptive might just be the basis for learning that is, indeed, transformational” (p. 28). Similar to

Jickling and Sterling’s (2017) sentiment in this quote, Riley sees that if we cannot identify our interconnectedness to our emotions, our place, and our growth among nature, then we cannot truly transform. Jickling and Sterling (2017) go so far as to express that the ability to feel

“surpasses language and understanding as we presently know it” and that “will keep humans from wiping out each other, and all other beings in their way” (p. 28). A part of the work of

Lopez (1990) and others in this English expedition plan is the understanding of pain and suffering from the human world, the impact on that pain and suffering in the environment around humanity, and the need to heal by connecting with nature to evolve together. Riley understands this but is still questioning what it takes as an individual to truly acknowledge this relationship between human and environment:

I’ve learned that for me, it is having the bravery to let nature help guide me where I need

to go such as the acknowledgement of my admiration for the outdoors that led me to the

[Central Idaho School]. I’ve found my sense of place by growing and being challenged

and exposed to foreign things such as kayaking through beautiful canyons, backpacking

miles through the backcountry relying purely on the entertainment of nature’s beauty.

This place of gratitude, of self-consideration, of learning and growing, of healing and

cognizance, is the concrete yet abstract concept of my querencia.

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For Riley, it is not just about the adventure in nature. It is about the power of where those experiences happen and her ability to connect to a diverse set of experiences in diverse places that have empowered her to continue learning in the world. The “power of place as a context for diverse experiences that do not and probably cannot happen in the institution of school” and the

“diverse places that make possible diverse experiences and diverse cultural and ecological formations” (Gruenewald, 2008, p. 143) are what drive the growth for Riley’s sense of being in the world. Gruenewald (2003), in exploring the profound impact of place-based experiences in learning, expresses that “the fundamentally significant knowledge is knowledge of the unique places that our lives inhabit; failure to know those places is to remain in a disturbing sort of ignorance.” Riley understands this, and through her time at the CIS she embraced her identity as one of many organisms in the world around her, and learned to grow in her relationship with both people and place and the places between.

For Elle, this was the point of the assignment – to start a deeper analysis and conceptualization of life beyond literal text from Lopez (1990). Elle’s hope was for her students to all evolve to a point of experiencing text as more than an assigned document or production, but as a part of who you are when you experience the world around you. The expedition plan for the English course throughout the semester planned for these experiences – these “digging deeper” moments as she often called them. Elle mapped out assignments and experiences that she knew could be informed through the lived experiences of the students during their time at the

CIS. She knew that the variables of students’ backcountry expeditions could be predicted, but the intricacies of those experiences were truly unknown. In her planning, she allowed for this to be the case and stayed connected with her leadership in the backcountry as a way to constantly draw connections to student experiences with the work in her academic class.

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The Owyhee Canyonlands: Living your own Hero’s Journey

Elle built a series of expeditions in English class around the concept of a journey as described through Joseph Campbell’s monomyth called “The Hero’s Journey”:

Figure 4. Joseph Campbell’s depiction of the Hero’s Journey as used with CIS students.

The students lived this academic expedition during their backpacking trip in the Owyhee

Canyonlands. The hero’s journey, as defined by Joseph Campbell, is a cyclical progression that follows a protagonist’s journey (emotions, mental, and physical). This journey is commonly applied to epic journey stories such as Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia. Elle tied this literary experience to the students’ experience in their own epic journeys over two different expeditions.

The expedition that had profound impact on personal growth for not only the individual students, but also the CIS cultural emergence, was their trip to the Owyhee Canyonlands. During this journey, Elle had prepared students by asking them to read examples of the hero’s journey in

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literature. Then, during their multi-day backpacking trip in the Owyhee’s, students were asked to define the various steps of the journey through their own lived experience. These steps included separation of the protagonist from their known environment with a call to adventure, initiation into the wild through experiences in nature and place outside of their known environment, and finally a return to their known environment with the wisdom gained from their journey to share with the rest of the world.

Students voted to experience this backcountry expedition in same-gender groups. There were some social issues happening with teenage relationships between some of the co-ed friendships and the group decided they needed to reconnect with their yurt families by traveling as a separate “Femsquad” and “Dude Tribe.” This journey in the Owyhee Canyonlands was powerful for everyone. Each group identified co-leaders for each day of the journey. Students were required to use their orienteering skills to navigate the mileage for each day. Co-leaders were not able to make any decisions for the group without finding group consensus. There is no water source in the Owyhee Canyonlands which meant staff had to do a planning mission prior to student departure to drop water jugs at various points that students had to find with the shared coordinates. There are also no well-marked trails or campsites as the area is open range public land in the high desert of Eastern Oregon. The stakes were high for safety and community health on this journey, and the preparation was more involved than other expeditions. Students planned and packed their own meals for their Femsquad and Dude Tribe while staff members were expected to be a participant – unless safety was compromised. During previous expeditions, staff co-led with students to model safety, expectations, and navigation in the backcountry. This time, staff let the students discover their own successes or failures as learning opportunities with their peer group.

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On the morning of departure, everyone loaded the school bus with their gear. The

Femsquad and the Dude Tribe would take different paths. Although this was the toughest expedition to-date for this group of students, the learning outcomes were the most abundant as it relates to the community they were building together.

The Femsquad: Self Discovery and Coming Together in Walking

One element of the semester that truly is neutral ground for students are the elements of the backcountry. In particular, the harsh terrain and lack of trail system in the Owyhee Desert.

This trip was mid-semester when students all needed a community refresher and time away to heal in their cultural growth. Riley and Shantyl (one of the three students in this study) both grew together during this trip. It was a trip where, for the first time, a cultural emergence happened where the students began to make their own culture (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016; Williams, 1977).

A consistent theme in this study is found in the motto for the school: when you need a classroom, the world awaits. Each experience in the backcountry was designed to connect with learning both in academics and in life.

bell hooks, in her book belonging (2009), addresses privilege and place in a way that fits with the experience these young women had, “Reclaiming the inspiration and intention of our ancestors who acknowledged the sacredness of the earth, its power to stand as witness is vital to our contemporary survival” (p. 48). I believe that Elle had attempted to help students understand the sentiment of the wild and authentic connection of humans with the land through her work the entire semester. For many, the idea of being connected to the earth was completely foreign.

Through the experience of this particular trip, many students were able to embrace their identity in the Owyhee journey and connect it both to academics and human experience. More than

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anything, they were able to address their development of self as they reflected on the experience as whole.

As a part of the academic portion of the trip, students were to embark on their own journey in the wilderness. Students were exposed to two explorers, Chris McCandless and

Andrew Forsthoefel, during their on-campus academic time for both English and Leadership class. Based on the examples of these two journeymen, the students were asked to create a pseudonym for themselves and to start each day journaling their adventures through a one sentence epithet preamble including a phrase that describes their intention for walking that day.

In this pattern, students created a real-time account of their journey in relation to Campbell’s cycle of the Hero’s Journey. The students left their known environment, journeyed through their unforeseen challenges and temptations, to find transformation and atonement after their revelation, and finally returning in a new way to their known environment.

The girls reflected on their journey each day by embracing the character they wanted to emulate through their pseudonym and also naming the type of walking they were enduring throughout the trip. Riley and Shantyl both embraced this opportunity with their peers and developed their journey personas. For both Shantyl and Riley, their experience backpacking in the Owyhees helped them further their sense of being in the world. They were asked to reflect each day on their connection with place. Their discussions with Elle, and in their journey walking activity, were some of the ways they expressed their ability to acknowledge the intersection of place (the Owyhee Desert), narration (the journey reflections), and the social (the cultural emergence as a female group) during their multi-day journey. Riley, or Gracious

Maximus, categorized her experience on the journey through “trudge walking”, “float walking”,

“screaming feet walking”, “I can do it walking”, and “proud walking”:

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Trudge Walking

Gracious Maximus trudges along the muddy path motivating the troops into the cold

desolate campsite once and for all for their first hardy slumber.

Float walking

Gracious Maximus laughs and charges on in the less muddy dirt with an inspiring vision

to climb up the steep treacherous hill to where we will finally feast on PB&J.

Screaming feet walking

Gracious Maximus finally passes on the leader of the day to giggle thunder and the

friendly gain and we proceed to charge on for miles to our campsite in the middle of a

beautiful canyon.

I can do it walking

Gracious Maximus is sweating bullets in the heat of the desert rays and feels like her

body is melting.

Proud walking

Gracious Maximus dances like there is no tomorrow when she reaches the take out and is

very proud of herself.

Shantyl, or Barking Dog, expressed her experience on the journey through “fierce walking”,

“walking tired”, walking with determination”, shade walking”, and “walking to finish”:

Fierce Walking

On the start of her journey, she began with a fierce walk and was determined not to give

up.

Walking Tired

Yes, I was barking today, I am the barking dog, walking tired.

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Walking with Determination

As she’s cruising along the path that doesn’t exist, all she can think about is getting to her

destination.

Shade Walking

As the Barking Dog is walking today, all she could think about was the shade.

Walking to Finish

Yes! It’s finally the last day and the Barking Dog has made it through, and is feeling, and

is still barking.

Each experience shared in these examples express different personas, different ways of thinking, different perspectives on their journey. The intentional activity of connecting their physical experience to written word allowed each student to embrace a persona that gave them a unique voice on their journey. The naming of their type of walk for each day helped them own their experience and they embraced that persona as they explored their interactions with each other in their backcountry community for the multi-day trip. Part of the healing that needed to happen for the Femsquad was focused around their community interactions on campus and the cliques that had formed. In such a small community, Elle felt that this exercise might take away the judgement of the individual and rather allow a playful bonding experience between personas related to their shared experience. They all show that it took physical work as well as mental work to make it to the end – and to have created stronger community by the time the end came.

Wendell Berry (1934) acknowledges the physical connection to mind and body in place as well as the unifying power of this experience in the following quote:

We are working well when we use ourselves as the follow creature of the plants, animals,

material, and other people we are working with. Such work is unifying, healing. It brings

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us home form pride and despair, and places us responsibly within the human estate. It

defines us as we are: not too good to work without our bodies, but too good to work

poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone.

For the Femsquad, regardless of their differences, the utilization of their experiential opportunity to personify the journey within themselves helped each individual gain some understanding of their experience with place, and with each other.

The Femsquad conquered their journey as individuals and as a collective. Their need for refocusing their ability to be a team was a priority. Elle notes in a blog post after the expedition that she saw this strengthened:

These young women all noted their "call to adventure" as their personal and independent

decisions to enroll in the [CIS] semester - to demand more of themselves than the average

high school experience. While they were able to recognize challenges they had overcome,

and able to note feeling "stronger" or "more resilient," they couldn't quite see with the

perspective I had, removed from the ongoing teenage turmoil and intensity of their

experience. These young women have built confidence in their voices to not only

formulate a logistically-complex plan for their peer group but to lead with poise,

compassion, and high expectations. They rose early for each other in turns to make

breakfast before dawn. They offered to shoulder weight from a struggling friend to help

them make it to the next peak. They were learning to communicate with a co-leader

through frustrations and self-doubt. Sometimes change can be so gradual, so constant,

you'd never notice it - like the water that carved this same oxbow through thick red

canyon walls. Or it can take your breath away in an instant. With confidence in our lungs

we owned our experience, shouting our types of walking to the canyon walls. Sparrows

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littered out of a hundred bird-sized caves, and our echoes filled the oxbow, like a river of

newfound pride.

This experience by the Femsquad not only nurtured their own sense of being, but also brought their group together through a difficult trip. This group went into the expedition with a common goal – for their community to find healing. They achieved this goal by working together to navigate the harsh desert. Through Elle’s English course during the semester, the students explored a variety of texts that focused on the power of place and the importance of human connection and healing through community. For Riley, this experience helped her deepen her connection to her community and nature. The experiential opportunity of being out in the backcountry practicing orienteering and reflecting on each day through deeper exploration of texts from Elle’s English course were all catalysts to her growth.

Figure 5: Femsquad on their Owyhee journey (CIS blog).

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Culminating Leadership Project: Experience Extended

When students leave the CIS, they are prepared to take on a project in their home community. The guidelines are specific, and the project is meant to allow for them to take leadership with members of their own community to benefit their place. The project is something that keeps the rhizome of the CIS moving into other communities worldwide. More importantly, the school strives to help students understand - and make it a way of their being in the world - the difference between charity and solidarity in their service learning experiences.

Seth, in an interview about the leadership course, shares:

We try to do a really good job in that we market the program as a place where the goal is

to be a leader in a community leader sense - and so I think they come in with the idea that

“oh yeah, we are going to be doing service” and that, ummm, I think most of the students

come in being open and wanting to do that anyway. So, we get students who want to give

back. I think what they learn over time is that there is a difference between a young

person especially - one of our goals is to help them see issues or see problems and say “I

can make a change and do something. I can lead a group of people to do it” versus just

being like, “Oh, I can give of my time for someone else.” And the easier route would be

to just give of their time. And we want them to be that kind of person but we also want

them to be like, “somebody has gotta notice these issues out there and do something

about it.”

Student projects may begin in one form and shift into something completely different over time.

This is encouraged and nurtured as part of the process of life. “Students often deviate, but again, it’s not this process of students doing service and going to a place because they think they are superior. It is more like ‘I belong to this community. This benefits me, this benefits you, this

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benefits everyone that helps’” (Seth, 2014). This process for students is nurtured both while they are on campus for the semester as well as when they return home for months to follow.

Students have the opportunity on campus to prepare for interviews with individuals who were successful in creating their own rhizomatic ruptures in the world as they have had their service become sustainable and fruitful. The founders try to stay realistic with students by exposing them to individuals who have come from all different backgrounds and have shown varied levels of success, but all have the same foundation of beliefs as the CIS about the world and their participation in it. The example of Brad Ludden who started First Descents, a nonprofit started to provide life-changing outdoor adventures for young adults impacted by cancer, in 2001

(also a professional kayaker, humanitarian, and Cosmo’s most eligible bachelor of 2008) was discussed because of his honest background. Seth shared why students being able to learn from individuals like Brad is so important:

Students will always ask “what skills, or what education did you need to run this program

[First Descents]?” And it’s awesome, because he was a high school graduate who never

went to college and I love it. And he is always embarrassed, like “I don’t know how to

answer that when I talk to high schools because I don’t want to discourage kids from

going to college but” and I’m like “no, just be honest.” You know? I mean college is a

route, if that’s what you need. If you are interested in medicine - a lot of our kids get fired

up about medicine and medical training because we do the Wilderness First Responder

training - and so if you want to go into medicine you have to go to college. You aren’t

going to really do medicine without a college degree. You need to be a nurse, doctor, PA.

So, there are certain routes where you need to go to college, but not all of them involve

college. And so, we love that and we love his stories amongst many of the leaders we

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have and introduce where it’s like, you know, there was no reason that he had to be 21 or

25. He [Brad] started his work at 18. These kids can start something meaningful at 16, 17

years old. So, one of the ways we prep them is to just introduce them to people who have

done something somewhat comparable.

This is a school, a community of high school students, who are not afraid to tell students that formal education may not be the path they take and that is acceptable. There is no pressure to go to college - although most of these students will - because there is a deeper understanding of the connection a person needs to have with the world around them. That happiness through connection is the priority with formal academics as just a part of being a lifelong learner rather than the entire premise of learning.

As students return home, they begin a confluence in their home communities that has the potential for a rhizomatic rupture to continue to grow throughout the world through their projects. As outlined in the student CLP Plan document, the culminating project cannot be done alone, be routine labor (cutting the grass or fixing a fence), it cannot benefit the school (or any individual or business), and it cannot be only a fundraiser. The goal for the project is to help students make giving back a part of their existence in the world, not just a one-time thing for the sake of finishing a project. The project is meant to be done in coordination with at least 5-6 people, a chance to do something unique and meaningful, and something that benefits a group of people or addresses an issue in the student’s home community. The benefits of this project were not measured during the time of this study. Rather, the example of Riley’s CLP is a moment of rupture from her story and how she developed her sense of being in the world after her semester experience through the shaping of her project.

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Riley: “Getting into nature can help communities heal.”

Earlier, I shared about the leadership course and Marshall Ganz’s framework of “story of self, story of us, story of now.” The CLP work began mid-semester in the leadership course and pushed students to develop an understanding of their purpose for approaching the problem they wanted to address in their home community. Riley’s story of self, or the “why” she wanted to address this particular problem, in her original draft of her project was:

After spending some time with children in inner city Atlanta, [I] noticed that most kids

don’t have much exposure to nature such as hiking on trails or spending time on the

Chattahoochee River. [My] choice is to get involved in sharing my experiences rafting on

big rivers in the west . . . and crafting a way that children can have the same experience

on a river so close to home. This is important because it encourages a healthy lifestyle

that all kids need. [My] outcomes are facilitating a program where kids can experience

the outdoors of Atlanta by participating in a day of rafting down the Chattahoochee

River.

Riley had experience working with inner-city youth3, specifically upper elementary age students, prior to her time at the CIS. Her passion for this demographic of youth is rooted in the research she did that showed evidence of early exposure and use of drugs in certain areas of

Atlanta. Through her research of this problem, Riley discovered that this problem worsens as children are growing up around it with the average experimentation of marijuana at age 14 and the average alcohol experimentation as early as 11 or 12. Riley wanted to create a solution to this problem by helping kids from different parts of Atlanta come to connect and explore parts of

3 The term “inner-city youth” is the word choice used by Riley and the CIS staff for her study. This is not a term that I am using as the critical researcher as it is outdated and reinforces problematic issues of white privilege through white complacency and silence.

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nature that are often less accessible, especially among inner-city populations who may lack financial resources to leave their neighborhood. “Out of the City, Onto the River” was Riley’s way of allowing children the adventure to raft down the Chattahoochee River at no cost with the help of active members of the community who wanted to share their passion for the outdoors.

Throughout the leadership course at the CIS, Riley had to prove that this event was possible by connecting with organizations back in Atlanta, researching the issues facing inner city youth who may be accessing this event, and develop a team of Atlanta locals to help support her project. Riley mentioned to me in a conversation after leadership course one day near the end of the semester, “This is a ton of work, but I think it’s worth it.” She looked over at me as we both slumped down on a bench together at the fireplace near the dining area with an exhale of exhaustion and satisfaction about the work we had both put into our days. She added, “It is going to be weird going home and continuing to do this work while trying to get back into my routine to finish the school year.” We sat on the bench outside of the dining area looking through the

Google Doc of her project draft. I asked her what her motivation was to finish this project.

“Well, I dunno yet. It just feels important to do something for other people and that’s what we are learning here, ya know?” I did know. I often sat observing classes and expedition experiences thinking to myself, “Why do I feel angry watching this? Is it because the students I taught in inner city areas aren’t getting this opportunity? Is it because I am watching a group of predominantly white students as a white privileged observer feeling like this experience may be part of the problem and not part of the solution at all for education?” All the while, I also felt like the work that was unfolding in front of me with this micro, place-based, experiential learning environment was important, and I needed to see it through – just like Riley.

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Throughout the last half of the semester, students worked on planning for their CLP.

They researched, identified their story of self, story of us, and story of now in their planning framework. Riley was one of the few students who seemed dedicated to staying connected after the experience at the CIS to complete project implementation. The leadership course was the primary time during their CIS experience where planning and receiving feedback for their projects occurred. As expeditionary time in the backcountry continued, coupled with an international exchange in Chile, the ability to plan with partners in their home community to secure project viability became increasingly difficult. Riley persevered.

During the semester following the CIS, Riley and a few other students joined bi-weekly

Google Hangout group video calls with Seth. I observed several of these to better understand the sustainability of the CLP concept. Each call the number of students dwindled. They were not held accountable for the CLP implementation during this iteration of the CIS programming. Seth and Kara hoped that students would learn enough during their semester experience to want to see through their projects, but they also understood the realities of going back home and being busy in a different part of the country or world. Seth and I talked about this several times throughout the experience. In an interview after the leadership course one day towards the end of the semester he admitted, “We aren’t sure how to make this work. Is it critical? Sure…you know…sure. We have a mission to develop leaders, but we are figuring out what pieces of this program really help achieve that. That’s kinda why it’s tough to have you here…while we figure that out in real time and grow our vision together.” In my experience, it is imperative to have partners to help think through what may or may not work when building new programming.

Having a researcher present who is documenting, and potentially judging, the process was difficult and distracting for me and for Seth and Kara. This caused us to continue to re-negotiate

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the terms of what would be shared in this project through each experience during the semester.

For Seth and Kara, Riley completing her CLP was a huge milestone. For Riley, it was a challenge that was incredibly meaningful for both her own growth in her sense of being.

In a blog she published (written in third person) for the CIS following her implementation she noted the major challenges of the planning experience:

Throughout the project, [Riley] was thrown a couple of curve balls that she was not

anticipating. For example, the contact that she had been working with and planning

with at the Dream Center and Metro Kidz, left halfway through the process of

planning. [Riley] had to schedule new meetings and go over ever detail again with

the new head, Elena. While at first [Riley] thought this was just adding extra

unnecessary work to her schedule, she realized that in the end, having to plan the

project twice made it much easier to handle because she knew the plan so well.

Another unanticipated challenge was gathering all of the kids that were supposed to

participate, at one time. Earlier in the winter, [Riley] decided that she would include

a short one-day service project for the kids who wanted to come rafting as a way for

them to earn the trip. The plan was to make cards for the elderly people in a nearby

retirement home and hand deliver them. When the time came for the service project

in early June, 7 kids showed up, and [Riley] was anticipating many more. While

this initially frustrated [Riley], her mentor Elena explained to how hard it always is

to coordinate volunteers, no matter what the circumstances were. With that, Elena

and [Riley] both decided it would be a good idea to offer a second community

service project for the other half of the kids who didn’t show up the first time. The

next week, during this second opportunity, the other entire half of the expected group

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showed up. [Riley’s] group of volunteers passed out water bottles in the scorching

heat of Atlanta on a popular path around the city.

One of the other challenges of the project involved raising money. At first, during

the school year, [Riley] asked the head of service projects at her school if there was

anything at all that she could do to raise money for the project at the school, but was

told that that every opportunity was already taken by something else. It was getting

late and [Riley] knew she needed close to $1,000. She sent out an e-mail to outdoor

companies, adults that she knew, family members, and anyone she knew that could

possibly help. [Riley] described her project and sent it off. Ultimately, she received

much more support than she thought she would and was able to donate the surplus to

the Dream Center.

For anyone who has tried to implement a community event designed to bring very different communities together – in this case urban youth with river recreation – you can understand that this is a huge undertaking. For the purpose of this study, Riley’s grit in seeing this project through for her home community sheds light onto the type of citizen she is in the world. The experience of leadership as rupture allowed for Riley to show herself that she did grow from the

CIS. The results of the project, as captured in the blog entry, help us see the type of citizen she is on the path of being in the world:

Before the action day, [Riley] spent hours in meetings with different people from the

Dream Center planning the project. Next, Elena and [Riley] planned two community

service projects. For the first community service project, half of the kids that

ultimately participated in the rafting trip made cards for the local retirement home

and delivered them. The next community service project engaged the children in

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walking through the Atlanta Beltline Path through downtown Atlanta, where they

picked up trash and handed out water bottles to people on the trail. Finally, in mid-

June, the action day rafting trip took place. The whole trip was about 6 hours long.

[Riley] had classmates of hers from the [CIS] and another friend helping out

throughout the day, as well as 3 volunteers from the Dream Center, her parents, and

her brother.

After using her leadership skills on her CLP, [Riley] went on a National Geographic

Student expedition to Bali that was focused on conservation. She plans to use the

skills and ideas that she learned in Bali and apply it to her life at home. [Riley] also

is going to be on the 2015-2016 [CIS] Advisory Committee and plan to contribute

her ideas and leadership skills to that new field. As for her CLP, the kids had a great

time and she could see the trip happening again next summer.

In the literature review section of this study, I reference Westheimr and Kahne (2004) to highlight the types of citizens represented among people. The first is the personally responsible citizen who sees that others may be less fortunate than them, so they donate clothes or food to a program in order to contribute to the world. The participatory citizen may help organize a clothing or food drive with an organization in their community and may also donate to the causes. The justice-oriented citizen would seek to understand why people are lacking in basic human needs such as clothing and food and would start to create solutions from the root of the issue rather than rely on a temporary or short-term contribution. I refer back to these types of citizens because all three of the stories in this chapter highlight a different type of person in the world. The CIS was one opportunity for each of the three students in this study to learn from, and they each emerged differently. Riley emerged having proven her identity as a participatory

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citizen by seeing through her CLP. The results of her project, and the hope to be more involved with both the CIS and future rafting events for inner-city youth, show that she may very well emerge to be a justice-oriented citizen.

Figure 6. Rafting day during Riley's CLP implementation (CIS blog).

Vignette for Ryan: Tip of your nose and the bottom of your feet

I used to always tell my students – both high school and college – that my greatest hope for them was to start seeing the world beyond the tip of their nose and the bottom of their own two feet. There is something about being a teenager that made it increasingly difficult to see the world outside of yourself and your immediate needs. I’m sure there are entire bodies of literature dedicated to this phenomenon – some of which I have read – but still this is how teenagers are wired. When I sit back and observe things that are happening around me each day at the CIS, I am continuously impressed with how students engage with each other as a community. It seems, through observation, that they are slightly less egocentric in this environment. This makes sense because they are responsible for their own learning, cooking, cleaning, timeliness, and safety.

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Although staff are here to guide, students are truly just facilitating the experience. It reminds me of being away for summers as a kid and the times I have travelled alone. You have to find and cultivate your community and the culture therein.

I continue to be reminded that culture is everywhere around us whether we are aware of it, or not. Here, the community spends time intentionally developing and tending to that culture.

It seems to shape itself as each day goes on. Students are aware through moments of failing forward that they are a small part of a whole (their peers, the school, the world around them).

Staff remind them that they are learning together and that if they aren’t intentional about the culture they are tending to, then the culture creates itself. It seems that students get this – and they get that this is sometimes difficult but worth the effort. I am having a difficult time watching a few students struggle through this process of learning who they are and how they fit, what they are capable of, etc. Ryan is a great example of this. He still begins every action within his own ego and through a moment of failure (typically due to stubbornness) he is suddenly able to step outside of himself. This approach constantly aggravates him – he seems frustrated that he continues this pattern. I want to coach him through this, but it is hard to find a way to approach him without him feeling threatened. This kid has a long history of adults scolding him and this semester experience is hopefully going to help him find a more positive way to have relationships with mentors and peers…I hope!

If there is anything I hope to achieve during the days here at the CIS it is to help Ryan – and some of his peers – understand how to think outside of themselves, especially when making choices every day that impact others. I have no idea if this will ever fully take, but I am a believer that if it isn’t apparent now it will be someday. I am remembering my former students who years later sent an email or a card thanking me for helping them understand elements of

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their character – even when it was frustrating. Maybe Ryan will be added to that list someday…time will tell.

Ryan: “It doesn’t matter what I do here . . . it’s just a semester.”

Ryan is a very likeable, tall, sandy blonde 16-year-old white male who grew up in the

Bay Area in California with privileged, affluent family. He had a sporty build and a charming demeanor but struggled to follow-through in his past schooling experiences with the day-to-day tasks. His parents have done well in their professional careers and have afforded Ryan many opportunities to try a variety of schooling options from traditional, to charter, to private school settings. Like many of his white male teenage peers, Ryan did not understand the cost or efforts associated with the life he was born into. He also didn’t understand that the way he was raised – with choices, access, and financial security – was not the experience of everyone his age in the

United States. While Ryan could understand differences in lifestyle for teenagers in other countries, he didn’t see it here on the home front.

Ryan came to the CIS because he couldn’t find his place in his previous schooling experiences. His parents sent him to the CIS for a semester to be pushed intellectually and physically through the expeditionary learning experience. He had a habit of acting out in other school settings, getting kicked out of classes because he wouldn’t follow the rules, or even voluntarily leaving because he “didn’t like” what he was experiencing. In many ways, the nurturing environment of a family who encouraged his decision to continue to move around for what “fit him” rather than reflect on how he might “fit in” better over a period of time, contributed to his discomfort in learning.

Socially, Ryan was very well liked both in California and at the CIS. He is out-going, cares about the people around him, and has a very playful personality. He isn’t afraid to help or

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be involved with a variety of social groups, but he often does not put forth effort without being asked or invited to do so. When Ryan first arrived at the CIS, he expressed in a getting-to-know- you activity that he felt it did not matter what he does during this semester because it was a temporary solution to his problems from home. His time with the CIS shed light on a lot of growing up that he hadn’t realized he needed to do. At the CIS, his decisions directly impacted the well-being of his peers, whereas in his school experiences his decisions only directly impacted his well-being.

Ryan came to the CIS from frustrated parents, a privileged household, and a history of moving through social groups and school settings. During his entrance interview he expressed that he “hasn’t found a good fit and is hoping this will help him figure some things out” for the semester. Ryan said to me more than once that he was worried he would never shake his reputation: “People like me. That’s fine. I like me, too. But when I think about where I am going,

I don’t know how to make sense of that. I don’t know if I will get through school the same way everyone else did and I don’t know how to do college or anything past that if I can’t do this.”

This feeling is not unique to Ryan. Derek Rasmussen (2009) explains when talking about environmental and place-based education that “[to] become a person we need time: time with our family, time with our elders and community, time out on the land, and time with ourselves - to reflect on our actions” (p. 292). In Ryan’s experience, as with many students in the U.S. public school system, many of his opportunities to emerge as his own person and grow were taken away by being put “in school - away from the land, away from our family, our community, our elders.

In many ways school takes us away from the very thing it is to be human being: to feel and love the earth and what it provides” (Rasmussen, 2009, p. 292). In this way, the CIS was an

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experience designed to engage Ryan in a new relationship with the world around him to unplug from the Westernized experience of school to learn differently.

Ryan admitted during his entrance interview that he had difficulty fitting-in and complying with a traditional learning environment, so his parents sent him to the CIS for a semester to see if an alternative setting would help. The CIS does not exist to remediate students who don’t fit in the traditional public school system. The CIS exists to challenge students to learn differently, connect with their community and place more deeply, and build skills that can help them create lasting change in any community they choose to be a part of in their future.

Ryan struggled. He was frustrated with his parents for shipping him off, he was accustomed to acting out socially, and he never had any strong mentorship in his home community. He was a teenage boy searching to find a purpose to be his best self. His exploration of his sense of being began as he started to learn and practice the leadership elements at the CIS.

The shift of his outlook towards the community he was a part of at the CIS helped him understand why he was having a hard time in experiences back in California. For Ryan, social status was something he grew up believing was a key to a successful life measured by your income and lifestyle. At the CIS, social status had nothing to do with money or power but everything to do with survival and cultural expectations. Ryan’s CIS experience helped him take better care of himself holistically in order to be a strong member of a community with his peers.

He came to realize that this experience could be more than just a semester if he stayed open to the challenges ahead.

Ryan: Place-based growth for a displaced kid

The founders developed the leadership course to challenge students to grow in their sense of being. The 10 Elements of Leadership discussed earlier provided students and staff with a

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structure of being together in the CIS community. Students know they are being given feedback on these leadership skills throughout the semester and that may have caused them to act a certain way to be given positive feedback even if their actions were not authentic to who they intend to be upon returning to their home community. Ryan is one example of this.

Each student has a working document rubric that outlines their growth and development in the 10 Elements of Leadership at the CIS. A consistent theme in his narrative feedback from staff toward the beginning of the semester was his need to grow in maturity and self-awareness.

In the area of Character, staff stated “This is an area of growth for [Ryan]. He is highly intelligent and can often see the rationale of issues that staff members ring to him regarding his decisions . . . the issues arise because [Ryan] sometimes acts before considering the ramifications

(the risks).” In the area of Community Membership and Service, staff stated “He can refine his relationships with certain students to demonstrate more maturity and more appropriate intimacy .

. . it has an effect on the overall group.” Throughout the semester, Ryan was challenged by the experience at CIS. He realized quickly that the living situation at the CIS was not an excuse to party and be free without parents around. He had responsibility! Ryan had to get up on-time every morning and complete his chores with his group because if he didn’t his peers were negatively impacted – life didn’t run smoothly if every person didn’t contribute their equal share of the work.

Socially, this setting proved to keep Ryan in a positive place of growth. One staff member provided feedback on his Accurate Awareness element of leadership saying, “Ryan wrote an engaging and remarkable demonstration of learning speech about how much self- reflection he has done and identified points of growth and improvement areas. He has shown exceptional growth with identifying personal virtues and areas needing improvement.” Another

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staff member (when reflecting on Ryan’s Continual Learning and Improvement element of leadership) stated, “I think Ryan is extremely smart and capable. He is open to feedback, but has a hard time following through with making changes. He is aware of his weaknesses and is able to recognize his faults. I have no doubt that he is aware of his faults, but he just needs to find what works for him to be able to make changes in behavior.” These excerpts show that staff at the CIS genuinely saw potential in Ryan.

In observing Ryan during the first few weeks of classes and the first backcountry trip (as you will see in an upcoming section), it was obvious that he was a great kid. The pressure of relying on himself and his peers for success in life at CIS meant that he genuinely wanted to be present and learn as much as he possibly could. In a conversation I had with him after the leadership course early in the semester while we were on campus in Idaho he said, “I think I can do these things [the elements of leadership] well. It makes sense, you know? These are all things

I should be doing anyway.” I agreed with him and we talked a little about character development and his parents, “My mom always tells me I need to think about the world outside of my own head and stop reacting all the time. I didn’t really get what she meant. It felt like she just thought

I was acting stupid . . . maybe I was, ya know?” I was sure in that moment that most charismatic kids who have an active social life all over the world had a hard time understanding this because

I saw myself in this moment. This think-outside-of-yourself mentality was not always easy for him and created a lot of stress around going back to his home community after this experience.

I was just in the leadership course with him while they uncovered examples of each of the

10 Elements of Leadership using the guiding questions, how do you lead in your own life? and what makes a leader effective? Ryan sat quietly in the class really listening to how his peers talked about each of their experiences and ideas about what it means to show leadership.

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Specifically, Ryan listened keenly as his peers and Seth discussed the element of 360 degree thinking. This element of leadership at the CIS is defined in the leadership curriculum as follows:

“To solve problems effectively, a leader must be able to see the issues from all angles and weigh the consequences of actions.” Ryan was shared with me that he felt like he could reflect and understand things he had done or gone through, but when it came to having foresight he felt he needed work. Ryan was incredibly well liked by his peers at the CIS but struggled with having the foresight to make thoughtful decisions. “I get excited in the moment, ya know? Like, I don’t stop and think about how what I end up doing might impact people around me because it just feels good to do it in the moment when everything feels positive. I dunno.” In the aforementioned comments from staff, this issue of not thinking before considering the risks involved was a consistent theme. As we will discover later in this chapter, Ryan needed an experiential opportunity outside of a familiar social setting to really begin to embody these elements of leadership and show growth.

Dude Tribe: Connecting the Rhizome through Shared Challenges

During the Owyhee trip, the male group felt confident. They left the trailhead believing that they were going to conquer every issue ahead of them in the harsh desert climate. Ryan turned to me with two of his friends, their backpacks cinched off-balance on their young backs and their water bottles half full. He said to me, “We got this flat desert hiking. No problem.” I turned to my staff partner and rolled my eyes. We both acknowledged that by day two Ryan and his confident posse would be exhausted, sore, and possibly dehydrated. Their pride and confidence exuded from them in a way that made our staff team feel nervous – myself included.

There should always be an underlying feeling of fear, or at least an awareness of being merely human in nature, when embarking on a journey into the wilderness. It became apparent that the

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work thus far in the semester with critically situated place-based exploration of learning

(McKenzie & Bieler, 2016) had perhaps been brushed aside as the boys got ready for their expedition.

The common goal for the Dude Tribe was to excel at their ability to orienteer with a map and compass. They felt completely ready to embark on this trail-less adventure with their basic tools and be able to be successful. As with the Femsquad in the previous section, the male group was challenged with the Joseph Campbell’s exploration of the hero’s journey. The group was tasked with documenting their walking each day by giving themselves a pseudonym and their daily walking a creative name embodying the mood of that day on the trail. The Dude Tribe began their first two days feeling inspired and energetic. Ryan, pseudonym the Yung Jeff

Broccoli for this trip, described day one as “New Walking”:

When we get there it is raining

And the rocks look like they're paintings

5 miles on the trail

First day ain't a fail

Another member of the Dude Tribe, pseudonym Oxford (“Ox” Marshall Thompson), described the beginning of their journey as “Push-walking”:

Today we hiked for an extra hour trying to find a suitable campsite. With each passing

minute of excess time, the group realized more and more that we would be setting up and

cooking in limited light, so we pushed on even faster to try and find a decent spot to

camp in.

The group was excited to be out in the wilderness. I asked Ryan at the beginning of day two if needed any help getting his pack ready. My goal in doing this was to help him pack the weight

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evenly so he would have less risk of injury or soreness from the weight over multiple days. His reply was a quick, “I got this! We are men and we got the weight packed just fine.” We were standing outside of his tent space as he was loosely folding up his tent, not checking that his clothes were in a dry area of the pack or that his gear was packed tightly to reduce air pockets or uneven weight distribution. He was sure he had it under control at this point, and my role was not to correct him but to support him in his journey of learning.

Day four of the Dude Tribe journey was one of the most difficult days I have had in the backcountry through years of experience. Ryan, or the Young Jeff Broccoli, described this day as

“Confused Walking”:

Eight miles walking today

At first everything's ok

Then we get lost

In camp I feel the cost

Each day of the journey, students took turns leading the group and practicing their orienteering skills. Day four was Ryan’s day with one of his peers. The ever-confident Ryan was starting to feel the physical pain of carrying his pack loaded unevenly. He and his leadership partner for the day, “Ox” Marshall Thompson, were not willing to ask for help and led the group almost three full miles off course. “Ox” Marshall Thompson’s description of day four read:

Anxious-walking – [Ryan] and I led the group off course, and even when we got

redirected, I was walking with an unassuredness in my gut.

Both young men were sure they would be able to get to camp without assistance from any of us on staff. This experience was the most difficult for me as a participant researcher. We were running out of daylight, almost a full mile from the nearest water source, and knew exactly how

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far off course we were during the day. However, staff agreed to let the group fail forward. Ryan and “Ox” Marshall Thompson knew their 10 Elements of Leadership, explored their skills prior to leading for the day, and had to experience the responsibility they had and the repercussions of not being willing to ask for help from any of their peers or staff on the trip.

During the day following their leadership experience, both Ryan an “Ox” Marshall

Thompson took time to reflect. Ryan described their last day as “Think Walking”:

Last day on the trip

Dry air on my lip

Last final push

My legs feel like mush

He was exhausted and had not yet been willing to reflect fully on the previous day and the fail forward experience of getting the group so far off course. Our staff team with the Dude Tribe provided feedback to Ryan and his leadership partner as a part of a debrief exercise. “Ox”

Marshall Thompson reflected right away, spent time with staff discussing what he had learned, and apologized several times to individuals in the group. His last day was deemed “Hope- walking”:

In light of yesterday, and even though we only had about a mile of off-road terrain to

cover, I was still leading the group in hope of an accurate direction of travel. We made it

together.

He felt the tension from the group during the day they were lost, and he wanted the opportunity to support a successful end to the trip on their last day. Ryan took a bit longer to process and reflect. Our initial debrief conversation was quick after a long day, but the following day Ryan shared with the staff in a conversation over breakfast some of his thoughts: “I really need to

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practice some humility. I really thought we could figure it out and I cared more about that than I did about getting to camp safely. That isn’t really what we are here for – it isn’t about winning and I know that, but I just am so frustrated. I couldn’t figure out the map and I pushed my partner to keep going the wrong way in the process. It sucked.” We sat in silence as we waited for the coffee to steep in the REI French press after he shared this for a few minutes while those thoughts sunk in for him. As I started to press down the plunger on the coffee, Ryan said again

“it just sucked.” In watching Ryan try to figure out some of his own personal growth issues over the first several weeks of his time at the CIS I knew that he was working through the experience.

What I hoped in that moment was that he could push through the barrier he kept hitting where he just couldn’t quite connect his lived personal experience to the experience of the community as a whole.

The last morning of the trip, before a few miles of hiking out, Ryan approached me at camp as I was rolling up my tent.

“Hey, Cait?” He was quiet but was standing right over me.

“Yes?” I remember feeling so curious about what he could possible need from me. I knew he had been frustrated with himself and wasn’t sure how to come out of his funk since he led the group astray.

“I think I want some help with my pack this time.” I looked up and he was looking down at his feet, shyly. I spent days prior to this request trying to help him learn about load and safety with his pack. The staff on this trip all knew he was sore. I could tell it took a lot for him to ask me to help him. I also could tell that this was some evidence of growth through being vulnerable and admitting he needed help. That morning, before we set off for our last few miles, I taught

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Ryan to load his weight properly for a more comfortable pack carrying experience. It was a small thing, but it made a big impact.

“I’m going to work on this.”

“On packing your pack?” I asked, wondering if he maybe meant something deeper.

“On lots of things.”

The experience of helping Ryan that morning showed some growth from Ryan through the CIS experience that could transfer to real life skills. This was certainly a glimmer of hope that he was embodying some of the values of leadership and growing his sense of being in the world.

Was it all worth it?: Critical cultural emergence is not always known

Ryan continued to grow through a variety of experiences at the CIS after the trip to the

Owyhee Canyonlands. He executed a service learning project with a group of peers in Chile to help create awareness around water conservation in Northern Patagonia. He was a polite houseguest with an exchange opportunity for a week of attending a private school in a rural town outside of Santiago, Chile. Ryan completed his coursework and continued to get comments of his improvement in the 10 Elements of Leadership. However, when he returned home after the CIS semester he did not finish his CLP. I didn’t speak to him again after the end of our semester. I’m hopeful that he stayed in touch with peers, Seth, Kara, and staff – but I have no certainty of that.

The data I was able to use and analyze about Ryan became increasingly narrowed to the leadership course with Seth and Kara. I was not able to witness his exit interview to understand his culminating experience in his own words. It feels like there is a big piece of Ryan’s experience that may be realized later in his life when he reflects or experiences something that helps him continue to grow in some of the areas he was coached in at the CIS.

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Vignette for Shantyl: Facing our fear

I could see the fierce commitment in her eyes as she approached her kayak for the first time. We were all nervous – many of us, including myself, had not hard shell kayaked before. It isn’t an easy sport. Although I would consider myself comfortable in water recreation, having the enclosure of a kayak while paddling through white water and not knowing how to flip the boat without doing a wet exit to swim to safety felt incredibly nerve wracking. As I looked at

Shantyl, I realized that my fear was nothing compared to how she must be feeling. Not only had she been working to be comfortable with the boat in shallow water with the group, she was also learning how to swim. Her whole life, growing up in an urban area without access to safe water, she never learned how to swim. I thought about how tough things had already been for her as one of the only students of color, coming from a family dynamic that does not mirror that of her peers, and trying to fit in as an equal. These were not perceived thoughts I was having, they were true to her mentor sessions. I wish I could write about those details, but those sessions are not to be included in my research for the sake her well-being. So frustrating.

I watched her approach her boat sifting through stereotypes that she expressed she was facing with her peers – and now she was adding being an African American female who never learned to swim to the list. In all of my years working with adolescents I can count on one hand the number of students who have really wowed me as an individual. Shantyl is one of those. She decided to change her path, she decided to face her fears, and she is obviously committed to a future of finding her passion and living it. The strength that takes for any person is powerful. The strength it takes for Shantyl in this setting is even more powerful. We both stepped into our kayaks, paddled out onto the Cabarton next to each other, playfully splashed our paddles for a

“paddle high-five,” and faced our fear together.

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Figure 7. Shantyl facing the unknown with water (Scales).

Shantyl: “I need to do something different to get to where I want to go.”

Shantyl, an African American female from Tennessee, was the only scholarship student during this semester. Through a robust written application, interview, and review of need for financial aid, Shantyl received the $29,000 tuition scholarship and was responsible for some of her gear (some was borrowed during her time in the program), and travel to and from Idaho. The

CIS typically attracts more affluent families because of the high tuition cost, and costs for outdoor gear. Shantyl’s experience at the CIS was earned through a scholarship award from the school and her home community. She knew she wanted to try something completely different for herself to grow as a person, and the CIS appealed to her for the opportunity to travel and experience nature and learning in a completely new way. Although Shantyl has always worked hard and been successful in a more traditional school setting, she felt like she needed to push herself as an individual to figure out what she wants to do next after high school.

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Her journey with the CIS was very different than her peer group. Shantyl never had outdoor experience through the type of adventurous expeditions taken with the CIS. She also never learned how to swim, never been in a natural body of water, and never lived in a predominantly white community. Her home community was predominantly African American with a variety of languages and cultural backgrounds present in an urban setting. Her home community was also rooted in culture. For Shantyl, the CIS was an opportunity to grow as a person and as a global community member; it was also – in her words – the “way to stand-out when I apply for college.” Shantyl believed that in order to gain admission to college, she needed a “leg up” on her peers and doing a program like the CIS would help strengthen her application.

This assumption made by Shantyl speaks loudly to the overall critique of how youth perceive their sense of being in the world and how they are taught to believe what matters and what doesn’t.

When I first met Shantyl, she was very quiet – observing the interactions of her peers.

She was picked up at the airport with some other students who arrived at similar times and was chatting as she met people about all of their reactions to Idaho. “This is cray…where are we?!” expressed one of the girls who came with Riley from Georgia. She grabbed her phone and took a selfie with duck lips and the yurts behind her while others around her continued to shuffle their bags and gear around. Everyone was excited and moving in and out of the yurts getting their new homes organized and feeling comfortable. Shantyl waited for a bit. I noticed a staff member ask her if she needed anything and she said, “Not sure. There are no buildings anywhere around us…this is…I just…beautiful? I’m not sure. I never been outside the city like this.” The staff member gave her a side hug, helped her pick up her bags, and encouraged her into a yurt to pick a bed area with the rest of the group. Shantyl wasn’t the only student feeling nervous or impacted

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by the vastness of the scenery. There were hundreds of acres of open land and mountains surrounding them with nothing urban in site. The nearest major road was a two-lane state highway that had little, if any, traffic. It was definitely not a booming metropolis, but it was home for the next few months.

As I got to know Shantyl a bit more in the first few weeks, I learned about her life in

Memphis. She was incredibly proud of the school she went to. It was a new charter school in the city and was focused on college prep. She mentioned that her mother was supportive of her going to a charter school instead of the neighborhood school. Shantyl said over dinner with me, and other CIS students and staff, this was because “she knows if I stay at the normal school I won’t get out. It’s not like she wants me to leave. It just is like that school – everyone fails. Like, everyone.” No one questioned this at the time – why everyone fails at the normal school in her neighborhood. I found it odd that none of her peers asked questions, they just nodded in agreement giving off the response of “oh yeah, well – that’s just unfortunate for them.” I remember sitting at that table wondering to myself how her mother knew to find somewhere else to send her child to school. I also wondered why she felt like she had to leave where she is from in order to be successful in life. Over the course of the semester, seeing Shantyl learn and grow, I only caught glimmers of answers to these wonders.

This experience made me think of my own positionality and the struggle I continue to have to critically address issues of race and white privilege. This exchange was one of the first times I considered that the lens I had been looking at this study was all wrong. By focusing on a place-based, experiential learning opportunity as a way for individuals to learn their sense of being in a globalized world, I hadn’t considered the issues of access and privilege associated with how the dominant narrative of whiteness permeated the rhetoric. The fact that no one

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questioned Shantyl’s statement or wanted to engage in conversation about what she said is one example of this white silence within the CIS environment. Applebaum (1997) explains that

“individuals who profess to have the best intentions may consciously or unconsciously be perpetuating these injustices in order to protect their power and privilege” (p. 417). At the CIS,

Shantyl’s experience helped me see that the staff and other students were not equipped to engage in difficult conversations challenging the role of race in their community. “In this context, when whites employ silence to maintain some degree of comfort, that silence functions (albeit seldom explicitly) as a means to regain white dominance” (DiAngelo, 2012, p. 4). It seemed, as I continued to observe Shantyl, that the CIS was designed through well-intended assumptions that by accessing nature and the environment through a place-based community that all participants would be equal in their access and experience.

Shantyl: “Every kid needs to feel loved and have positive opportunities to learn.”

Shantyl’s hometown charter school, TSCS, had a strong culture driven by the mission and vision statement: “[TSCS] will prepare students for success in college and life in an academically rigorous, music-rich environment” (“About us,” n.d.). The school also embraced the following core values: “Our core values are Community, Respect, Integrity, Scholarship and

Empathy. We believe that ‘As a Community, we RISE’ (Respect, Integrity, Scholarship and

Empathy)” (“About us,” n.d.). Shantyl came to the CIS with a strong background in leadership from mentors who believed that helping students develop their character and college-ready, academic skills would allow for them to achieve big things in the world. Shantyl was a great example of this as evidenced by her kindness to peers, her excellence in academics, and her ability to always be the bigger person when times were tough. She always stepped-up among her

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peer group to help, to be supportive, to fill-in when someone wasn’t able to – not for attention, but because she genuinely believed it was the right thing to do.

Shantyl shared with me in a discussion after the first week of classes how she was feeling. “I know this is the experience I need to keep improving” she expressed, leaning into the words I need physically to show her earnest in wanting to be at the CIS. “Tell me a little about what you think needs to keep improving?” I asked. I wanted to understand why she continued to express this mentality of needing to get better, push harder, learn more. “Whatcha mean?” She paused. “Like, why do I want to better myself?” I nodded and waited for her to continue. “My friends don’t get to do this stuff. They didn’t get this scholarship. I don’t get to kick-back here and just take it all in…I mean, I guess kinda I can do that sometimes. But, it isn’t just a cool thing I’m doing. I have to bring something back to my school, my friends, the kids I spend time with. I need to show that this is worth it – to leave and do something different.” I appreciated her answer and she was incredibly kind in responding to me about something that, based on her tone, seemed so completely obvious to her. “Does that make sense?” she asked me, genuinely wanting to make sure I knew what she meant. “I think so. I just hope that you can have fun for you while you are here, too.” We looked at each other for a few moments. She shrugged and exhaled as she lowered her shoulders. “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be hard. I get to be outside learning…and it is kinda growin’ on me…this no big buildings thing.” We laughed a little and I watched her walk into the kitchen area to help the team get ready for dinner.

Shantyl was full of gratitude about being able to be at the CIS. It was an opportunity she applied for, found funding for, left her home for, and she felt personally responsible for bringing home something for her community when she returned to Memphis. Her school in Memphis is a

144 recognized charter school 4in Tennessee serving a population that is 100% African American.

The school serves 6-12th graders in college-prep curriculum focusing heavily on preparing students to be accepted to two- and four-year higher education degree programs. The state required test scores in Mathematics and Reading near the state average (still a failing number), but they exceed the district averages.

In her experience as a young leader in her Memphis charter school, Shantyl – and all

students – are made aware of their ranking. They understand that the doors to their school close

if they do not meet AYP requirements each year. They understand that the community

surrounding their school are falling below in academics and opportunity. Shantyl grew up

believing she needed to excel in school and in life in order to be a leader in her community. In a

world where most African American, urban youth are systemically disadvantaged, Shantyl was

in a school that works hard to instill values and rigor to shift that narrative.

Lisa Delpit (2012), discusses the issue of how that narrative might shift:

Those who bring different experiences to schools are viewed as deficient when assessed

through mainstream norms. We are told that we must find out what kids know and don’t

know so that we can remediate them. The problem, as the great Asa Hilliard once wrote,

is that there are two types of questions we could employ, The Type I question asks: “Do

you know what I know?” The Type II question asks: “What do you know?”… The

4 The discussion of charter schools being the best option for Shantyl, and the overall implications of the school choice movement – although riddled with issues of privilege and power – are not the focus of this study.

However, I do touch on this briefly in the next chapter.

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second question, “What do you know?” is the question we have to learn to ask. This is

the question that will allow us to begin to see all that is invisible in the child before us.

This is the question that will allow us to being, with courage, humility, and cultural

sensitivity the right educational journey. This is the question that will help us learn to

“help the sheep” (p. 200).

Both the Memphis school experience and the CIS experience for Shantyl embraced the “What do you know?” mentality. She has experience learning in a climate that found success by prioritizing academics and character development. At the CIS, she is asked to explore her sense of being in the world, to identify the elements of the natural world around her to help her grow, to see the academics she is learning through lived experience and outdoor adventure. While the

CIS may appear to be radically different than her homeschool, it is the same in the mindset of wanting students to grow into their learning in authentic and sustainable ways – not to be fixed.

Shantyl: On the basis of character

Shantyl’s embodiment of developing her sense of being was by far the most emotional to observe. She grappled with where she came from, where she wanted to be going, and what her hopes and dreams were in the world. Even though she was able to be a leader to peers and community members in Memphis, she was not exposed to testing those skills in herself outside of a familiar environment. Her decision to come to the CIS was a major rupture in her life experience and it challenged her in new and sometimes unfamiliar ways.

The vignette at the beginning of this section describes a moment when Shantyl and I kayaked whitewater for the first time. While this was a big deal for me, it was an incredibly brave moment for Shantyl. To this day, I am still astounded that she showed such little fear while tucked in tightly to a hard-shell, small boat, with limited swimming proficiency, down fast-

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moving whitewater. This, I came to realize, was just how Shantyl approached life – bold and brave. Kayaking was not the only “first time” she had with outdoor adventure. The entire outdoor program with the CIS was completely new to Shantyl. When I asked her on our first river trip how she felt about the experience of spending days in the backcountry she replied with a firm, “I absolutely love it.” I believed her. She jumped right in to every challenge and adventure.

The observation of Shantyl’s values and character were not just noticed by me throughout the semester. Staff members reflected about Shantyl in narrative feedback for her throughout the semester. One staff member wrote:

Shantyl’s character is impossible to ignore. She is strong and confident so much of the

time. She is dedicated and self-motivated to grow and excel, not just make do. I’ve been

consistently grateful for her role-modeling and persistent nature and compassionate,

articulate honesty. Wow. So much to be proud of.

Another staff member noticed that Shantyl had a profound sense of empathy in her interactions with others:

Shantyl has an exceptional ability to articulate herself in group discussions. When her

peers do not feel comfortable expanding upon their feelings, she is quick to support them

and fill in thoughts with statements such as “for me this is true when…” or “one thing

that makes me think of is…”, which grants solidarity and validation of her peers – this is

extremely powerful.

Shantyl came to the CIS understanding how to work in a community and how to lead from multiple directions. Another staff member commented on her ability to stay humble and dependable with her ability to follow-through:

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This is a true strength of Shantyl’s. She is organized with systems that work for her. She

is consistently on time for community activities and classes. She is often the first to

volunteer for even the least glorious tasks (sweeping the bus, cleaning out the garbage

cans on campus, etc.). I’ve been impressed with how dependable Shantyl is – even amidst

so many challenging transitions and foreign experiences.

These staff comments show evidence of this as we all observed Shantyl’s ability to connect with peers in a variety of ways to drive outcomes, learning, personal connection, and deeper understanding. Understanding the mission and focus on values at her home school, it is clear that

Shantyl’s learning experience has cultivated a strong sense of who she is in the world and how she would like to follow her passions to continue to grow as an individual and as a member of a bigger, more global, community.

These comments were tough to read. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why. Now, as

I am putting these pieces together, I understand that the staff at the CIS wanted to see every student as “equal” and as a result of this the language and praise they gave each student looked similar. Riley and Shantyl’s staff feedback looked incredibly similar. However, their experiences, especially in their CLP planning, looked quite different. Both students chose to create a CLP to provide experiences for urban youth. Both students sought to help an at-risk population of students – Riley through outdoor experience and Shantyl through literacy. The staff could relate to Riley’s experience and saw it as a reflection of their own program development at the CIS – that a different relationship with nature would heal and support communities to find equality (albeit through a white dominant narrative). With Shantyl, as you will read in the next section, the staff were unsure about how to understand her entry point because it was authentic to the population and a divergence from cultural norms of whiteness. I

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do not share this to compare the two students. I share this to further the point that a major disconnect with the CIS experience is the issue of how white silence and colorblindness

(Applebaum, 1997; Delpit, 2012; DiAngelo, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 2016) quietly reinforced the very issues attempting to be dismantled by the existence and mission of the program.

CLP Exploration: “Your growth is your reward for your hard work and perseverance”

Shantyl was incredibly passionate about literacy. She had spent a few years mentoring younger students with reading and writing with a nonprofit in Memphis and wanted to make that experience more accessible for students who need support through her CLP work. Her experience at the CIS allowed her to understand how learning can happen outside of the classroom and how place-based learning and experiential learning could impact a learning environment. The leadership course presented a strong opportunity for her to explore this passion for literacy and see how she could prepare an opportunity to take home to Memphis. Seth and

Kara designed the leadership expeditions to be based in passion exploration where students, as shared in the leadership course plan, should “identify topics they are passionate about and modify the assignment to their areas of interest” early on in the process and be given time and space to explore those ideas. Shantyl knew she wanted to explore literacy, but was not sure how to connect that passion with what she was learning or what she could create for her CLP experience.

Although CIS staff and students looked to Shantyl as a natural leader who had a lot to model for others in her semester experience, she also tended to shut down and be very hard on herself. Throughout the semester, she had several experiences where she had to remove herself from the group either due to being frustrated with herself or frustrated with others not understanding the value of her ideas that she was truly convicted about. Her CLP planning and

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feedback sessions were a strong example of this. A staff member reflected about Shantyl in a conversation with me leaving a work session for CLP planning where they had engaged in a tough feedback exchange with her saying she “has an immense capacity for clear, honest, articulate communication. She just needs to push herself to participate even when she’s frustrated.” When I talked to Shantyl about this experience she said, “I know what I want to do and how it will work back home. That’s it. That isn’t making sense to everyone, but I know it’s the way it has to work.” In thinking about how vastly different her home experience is in

Memphis from others who were supporting her at the CIS, I could understand her frustration.

However, Shantyl was surrounded by individuals who have had drastically diverse examples of life experiences that she could learn from – even if they were not perfectly aligned.

This experience watching Shantyl get frustrated and shut-down consistently – even when she has incredible character and core values – made me wonder if the CIS was equipped to mentor students of diverse backgrounds. Shantyl’s focus was on literacy support for at-risk,

African American, urban youth in Memphis. None of those identifying terms of her project are identities that the CIS staff – or most of her peers during the semester experience – could claim.

This had to be frustrating when trying to tackle an issue that reaches far beyond the personally responsible citizen (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004) where just buying books to donate to a classroom and assuming students knew how to read them (or that they would find the content culturally relevant). Shantyl spent several years engaged in a charter school that was mission driven to nurture the development of culturally responsive individuals who were strong, globally minded contributors to society. She understood what her community needed, and those needs were not validated by her mentors at the CIS largely because those mentors could not grapple with their own assumptions about race.

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The experience of the CIS is a semester of school that does, in many ways, detach students from where they come from. However, with the common thread of the CLP, it also inspires students to grow and reflect on their home community in order to go home and continue to support their home culture. Where some students were able to relate directly to the mentorship on their CLP projects from CIS staff, Shantyl was frustrated that her engagement between the

CIS and Memphis was not clearly understood. It was difficult to see her shutdown while trying to advocate for the needs of her home community as others made assumptions about what they thought her community needed.

As the semester drew to an end at the CIS, Shantyl was ready to head back to Memphis and share what she learned with her community. She did not speak up for herself after the first few instances of disconnect with her mentors which, in some ways, perpetuated the ability of the white silence to permeate the culture. At the time, I did not know why this bothered me so much.

I had not lost myself in my own issues of identity and positionality just yet to make sense of

Shantyl’s experience and frustration. Had I been more equipped for this experience I like to think that I would have helped the staff see what they were inadvertently participating in around issues of race and inequality. The last comment on Shantyl’s staff feedback was from Kara:

I am so proud of you, Shantyl, for signing up for this experience in the first place. You

left everything you knew and were comfortable with embarking on this crazy experience.

Your growth through this semester is the reward for your hard work and perseverance.

Continue to seek opportunities that challenge and inspire you to be the best Shantyl.

Although I know that Kara meant this in a motivating and kind way, I now wonder how Shantyl took this note. After the experience of working through her CLP, she went home to Memphis and implemented the literacy program she had planned for in her own way for her community. I am

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proud of her for doing this. It shows that she could accept the praise and feedback from staff about her character, grit, and perseverance. It also shows that she was able to “be the best

Shantyl” for her own racial identity and culture of place – and that she didn’t need to ascribe to her best self being rooted in the place-based liberal ideals the CIS had created. Leadership as rupture for Shantyl meant that she was determined to maintain her identity and stay true to herself and the needs of her community. This is the strength of character that I now realize

Shantyl embodied.

Shantyl came to the CIS already understanding what it meant to be a justice oriented citizen. She sought to understand why students in her home community were failing their literacy exams and wanted to create a CLP that addressed the root of the cause. However, the staff – although they meant well – did not know how to support her in this endeavor. Embedded in the

CIS program advocating for freedom from the restraints of the traditional school experience,

Shantyl was still subject to perpetuating the narrative of racial inequity as it related to her home charter school, TCSC. The experience of watching Shantyl struggle in communicating with her mentors at the CIS about her CLP project made me incredibly aware of the times in my teaching career that I have unknowingly created a similar environment.

Discussion

I have been working in the field of education since 2006 as a teacher, a mentor, and a researcher. During my first several years of teaching I struggled with the age-old battle of wanting to help my students be great people and great learners while also having to check-off an extensive list of demands for people at a district (or national) level who are not exposed to what it means to learn but rather what it means to be schooled. At the CIS, the experience of truly learning - through character, leadership, academics, and outdoor expedition - is helping to define

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a generation of students who can truly embrace making a difference in our world. We are in a time where the U.S. education system is serving students in a way that limits creativity, dreaming, and ambition outside of the confines of standards-based learning. In a globalized world, that has provided people the opportunity to be interconnected globally now more than ever, places like the CIS are striving to make sure humanity is not lost in that process. Building leaders and providing genuine experiences for students to think outside the walls of their classroom is contributing to the world as a whole in a way that we will bear witness to for years to come. The CIS has found a way to uphold rigorous academic standards for students and put focus on expeditionary learning. This incredible combination of rigor and world experience empowers students to shift paradigms as well as care for humanity and their world.

Students emerge from this type of learning experience with a greater sense of being as a result of their authentic contribution to their own learning experience. Students who have this experience with the CIS are exposed to expeditionary opportunities in the backcountry and on campus that push them to solve problems, extend their comfort zone, work together with peers and mentors, and produce authentic work unique to their passions in the world. When a student leaves the CIS, they see that understanding who they are in a globalized society is an evolving process as they gather more life experiences and build upon their foundations that were practiced/performed through experiential learning. To be a global participant at the CIS means that students are able to employ leadership elements to understand their surroundings, participate in the culture of their choice, and to always strive for sustainable solutions in the work they do in whatever community they choose for their future.

“By building community, we build leaders.” This is a saying that was often heard during community meetings by staff as a reminder of the importance of the work they are doing together

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and the work they are being prepared to do out in the world as leaders. By building leaders, we build a future. That future is something that we are each responsible for in some way - no matter how small – and the CIS is a place that opens the walls of the classroom into the world so that students can find their passion and take flight. During the semester of study, I was given the opportunity to travel with the students for their expeditions and experience the connection of classroom learning and field-based learning. The staff were gracious in giving me time to teach and talk with students while we are in the backcountry. I have witnessed the work that the CIS strives to provide students in action and it is powerful for those individuals who are ready to be completely present in the experience. What I saw during the time of this study was a group of adolescents who are living their learning. They didn’t look at the facts around them, they questioned those facts. They didn’t sit quietly while learning, they asked questions and collaborated. They didn’t look at a quick fix for a problem, they started at the root of the cause so they could really make a long-term change. The engagement and depth the students sought in their learning at the CIS was exciting to witness.

One of the three core themes that emerged from this study is the sense of being in the world. As I explored field notes and student work, it became clear that their experiences in developing their own sense of being in the world were a core component of the overall CIS experience. Specifically, the assignments that were aligned with Elle’s English course were a catalyst of student growth as they grappled with their journey at the CIS, their place in the world, and their participation in their past/present/future. The English course was also the place within the CIS where students were directly called to question and grapple with the history of the land they were occupying for each of their experiences. Elle had students reading indigenous perspectives and alternative voices to Western historical contexts which pushed students to

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examine their western biases of land access and land stewardship. By experiencing nature and learning perspectives of the world around them, students began to see nature as an integral part of themselves, and themselves as a part of nature. Furthermore, students began to build a foundation of understanding that allowed for them to consider dismantling their own privileges and biases while also challenging those of the staff as evidenced in Elle’s final note to Shantyl in the last vignette.

The CIS designed their semester experience to provide students with experiences outside their comfort zone to push them in discovering who they are. As mentioned in the previous section, Elle’s English course was a core piece of students’ development of their sense of being.

She pushed them through readings, experiences, and written assignments to make meaning of the

CIS experience holistically. For example, Riley showed incredible growth through these experiences in the English curriculum. The connection she was able to make to her sense of being in the world and the impact of that on others and systems around her were evidenced in her peer interactions, academic work, and her CLP. The CLP in particular was a step toward taking action and showing continued development as a global citizen rather than just taking in the knowledge she gained at the CIS and never putting it to use in other communities.

Throughout the semester, the CIS students experienced several multi-day outdoor trips.

During these trips, they were all still responsible for their academics and had classes anywhere from a tent in the pouring rain outside of their shared cabana in Chile to the side of the Salmon

River in Idaho. The academic learning experience could happen anywhere with the CIS and utilizing the UbD framework helped to ensure that the connection of experience to academic learning were both implicitly and explicitly taught to students. Riley, Ryan, and Shantyl all had different academic needs and goals before joining the CIS experience. Their assigned mentors at

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the CIS helped make sure they were on-track with their learning in classes with their peers and in their independent learning. What all three students expressed time and time again was that getting outside and pushing their comfort zone helped them grow as a person both in the world and in learning. Their passions were explored in hands-on ways, new passions were discovered, and learning became a truly embodied experience where academics were integrated in these experiential opportunities.

One example from the previous chapter outlines the link between their English course content understanding Joseph Campbell’s the Hero’s Journey and their expedition to the Owyhee

Canyonlands. The section then describes Ryan, Riley, and Shantyl’s growth through their outdoor expeditions and place-based experiences of learning. For Ryan and Riley, there were a few key moments of the world being their classroom that were discussed. However, for Shantyl, this theme was the most critical piece of her learning experience at the CIS. She had never experienced outdoor recreation, had never learned how to swim, never had out-of-the-classroom experiences beyond a fieldtrip in her home city, and came to the CIS hungry for a different learning environment. Not only did she get that, but she thrived in it.

All that to say, there are barriers to the CIS that are perpetuating inequalities and systemic issues of privilege. The greatest barrier to an experience like the CIS is cost. As explained in the previous chapters, the tuition cost for one semester of experience with the program is $29,000.

This creates a severe gap in accessibility to programming that may be providing lasting impact on leadership and citizenship among youth through experiential opportunities. By committing to a tuition-based model, the CIS is building a network of alumni who come from a position of being able to afford the one-semester experience and are likely continuing toward a future of understanding their access as normalized without critically understanding the impacts of their

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privilege on others. My greatest critique of the CIS is that during the time of the study they were trying to do too much. Seth and Kara hadn’t taken the time to learn about the ways they were impacting cultures locally and globally because they wanted to start the school. In some ways I can understand the desire to continue to build something that you believe in and that has momentum. However, in doing so they never had the time to stop and reflect critically on what they were doing. My greatest regret of this study is not advocating for the importance of telling their full story and instead agreeing to exclude details about the messiness of what they were figuring out as they launched the CIS program.

As I am writing this, I am increasingly aware of my whiteness and privilege. Although my educational experience has given me friends, students, adventures, trials, and exposure to many cultures and languages, I am still telling this story about Shantyl as a white woman of privilege. This is a personal conflict that has held me back from sharing this story at all since the time of the study. It is frustrating that the CIS is not only teaching leadership through the privileged lens of outdoor experiences, they are also charging tuition with a $29,000 price tag creating an immediate barrier for members of lower-income communities to have access to the learning opportunity. I also understand, and continue to reflect upon, my role in this study as a white, privileged, female observer participating in the CIS experience at no cost and traveling with the community. In telling Shantyl’s story, it feels difficult to finish this dissertation in a way that addresses all of the issues (the good, the bad, and the ugly) that should be discussed to provide a full critique of the entire program, systems within, culture nurtured, students admitted, staff hired, and more.

Seth and Kara received a great deal of critique and feedback in all of those areas at the end of my time with their program. However, with that feedback – and in the agreement of my

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access for study – I committed to including a focused aspect of how the program experiences impacted students’ sense of being in the world to explore the idea of global citizenship. This feels incomplete in so many ways which has compounded my struggle to share the voices and experiences of Ryan, Riley, and Shantyl. There is so much to share and having to consider only portions of this work in this dissertation is difficult for me beyond words. In the next, and final chapter, I share my own emergence from this study and the implications for future work. The last chapter begins with a vignette describing the last night at the CIS and then leads into a discussion and reflection.

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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

Vignette: The End as the Beginning

I sat on the edge of the stone fireplace in the dining room area of the Confluence

Building watching Seth lead students in their ceremonial end-of-semester experience. Students who joined this learning community from all different parts of the United States, and the world, were now a family. I watched them grow into their unlikely friendships, be humbled by what they thought they knew, be driven by wanting to experience more than what they were going back to in their home “bubble”, and so much more. I, too, had grown. It always surprises me how much

I still have to learn in this great big world and how much this experience has helped me be reminded of that in so many ways.

The lights were off with candles lit in a circle in front of the fireplace. Each staff member created a gift for their mentees with deep meaning. It was Elle’s turn to give one of her gifts – a hand painted bone from a deer that was discovered on one of the many adventures we all had in the backcountry. The painting was representative of the movement of a river through mountain peaks. It was equally representative of this recipient’s movement through her greatest challenges

(those peaks). I am reminded of bell hooks’ (2009) statement that “Life is full of peaks and valleys, triumphs and tribulations. We often cause ourselves suffering, by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

These students understood that a life of valleys meant no growth, no evolution, and no divergence from “the way things are” – and this particular student, Shantyl, knew that a life without peaks meant no future for her. She moved far beyond “comfort” and began a new way of knowing herself in this world. Her journey into understanding her sense of “being” is one that will forever bring tears to my eyes. As Elle read a letter of gratitude and affirmation to this

159 student the room was silent. I was so thankful to hear Elle express her own struggle with her

assumptions and privilege while learning from Shantyl during the semester. They had formed a

strong bond that challenged each other to grow as individuals. Elle expressed in her letter,

“Someday, I will be able to articulate all you have done for me by challenging the way I see the

world. I am forever thankful for your ability to stand for who you are and to question the way my

privilege has held me back in so many ways.” In understanding and working with Shantyl all

semester, I was genuinely concerned that some staff did not see that the way they celebrated her

and avoided the tough topics of race and equality by their polite silence was visibly frustrating

for Shantyl. Elle acknowledging this gave me hope. The dancing glow of the candles showed the shadows of each student who made the experience for this one person so rich, so powerful, and so authentic. It is no question in my mind that the piece of painted bone from Elle will be in

Shantyl’s life for years and years to come.

This process continued for each student from each staff member. Young men and women were thanked for their courage during the semester and affirmed how far they journeyed both literally and figuratively. This theme of the journey throughout the semester was a link that so obviously brought together the experiences of the environment for learning. I watched, I listened,

I quietly observed this end-of-semester ritual for hours. Then, it came to a close. Each student brought their candle to the middle of the circle and placed them together into the shape of the logo for the school – an elevated mountain peak. They all stepped back to see their flames shining bright together in a symbolic acknowledgement of the work they did together for the semester. Tears in our eyes, it was time to say goodbye to this new family and take the pieces of what we learned from each other home. Although the end has come, it felt as much like a new beginning for how each of us would be members of our communities upon leaving this place.

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Figure 8. One of many culminating adventures with the CIS (Scales). Now What?: Strengthening the Spokes

There is no final moment of the experience with the CIS. This study has driven me to explore as much as possible in the field of education and learning to consider critically how future generations may learn and grow. Although I am thankful for the experience with the CIS, I am also aware of the issues associate with this particular experience. The issue of understanding yourself in a globalized world is imperative to the sustainability of humankind. We do not, in my opinion, have the luxury to enjoy great things that are happening on a small scale for education and hold out hope that it will work. We must feel empowered to take what is working from a variety of educational settings – like the CIS – and put it to action in an accessible way. I believe that every person has the right to participate in a globalized world – and I will spend my life working collaboratively with others to ensure that right is fulfilled.

Sharing these three stories was an important opportunity. It showed me that I entered this study with one understanding of place-based, experiential outdoor opportunities and global

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citizenship. Had I not spent a few years unpacking the experience with the CIS, I think this study would have looked quite different. I wouldn’t have had the added life experience to help me critically reflect on the implications of a tuition-based, semester-long, outdoor experience school program. I would not have reflected on my own whiteness and issues of privilege and race to see

Shantyl’s experience with a critical lens.

What I have discovered since the time of this study is a growing number of micro schools and programs that are accessible through the public system or are tuition-free independent schools that are being responsive to the need for students to learn outside of the traditional system and gain the skills to be productive citizens in an unpredictable future. Since the time of this study, I have continued down a professional path of exploring and working with a variety of school choice models and traditional public school micro-disctricts. After the CIS, I have worked with a variety of charter school network models, worked in educational policy to support choice options for students, worked with traditional public schools supporting teachers in their approach to project based and learner-centered education, and explored the world of independent school models for innovation in learning. In her book, Multiplication is for White People, Lisa Delpit

(2012) describes how I feel about the work that needs to be done: “As J.C. High Eagle, a Native

American leader has said, if we live life right, we truly understand that we are but spokes on the great wheel of life and that which endangers one spoke endangers the entire wheel. Our work is to strengthen the wheel by strengthening each individual spoke. We are all a part of the wheel.

And we are all a part of the flock” ( p. 206). We have to start somewhere, and things have the ability to change from the inside out and to emerge in new ways in completely different structures.

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What has been lacking in any school movement – charter, public, private, independent – is trust in youth. In many ways, all participants in the educational system have been so informed and nurtured by the white dominant narrative of power and privilege that they have stopped seeing the places where they may use their own agency to believe in themselves and the power of their students. This seems lofty, but it takes me back to the quote from the last chapter that flips the perspective of what education is to what education should be. That is, to stop focusing on what students don’t know and to start focusing on what they do know and are passionate about. In this, there is a deeper understanding and trust built between generations, between experiences, between cultures. With this understanding comes strength and transcultural identities that are equipped to work together not to change each other, but to engage with each other.

Conforming to an assumed way of being in the world does not help us to embrace a future that will be the most diverse population in human history. According to the Pew Research

Center’s recent report, the U.S. population is projected to be majority nonwhite by 2026 (Fry and

Parker, 2018). This is significant, and if anyone believes it is not they are giving way to a narrative that no longer holds a majority power by population demographics. This projection has significant global, economic, and social implications. If we are not preparing students for an increasingly diverse world pushing more artificial intelligence, remote work spaces, entrepreneurial ideals, and sustainability crisis with our Earth (Fry and Parker, 2018; Gaulden and Gottlieb, 2017; Hawken, 2018) then we are signing-up for our own demise. This is the work

I hope to inform and continue. The fast-paced, constantly iterating, emotionally charged work that supports students to embark on a world that we can’t predict. How do programs, schools, and communities support the future? How does education play a role in developing people of the

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world? How do we continue to provide access and shape legislation that is written for all? The part about this that feels hopeless is that these are age old questions that individuals have been asking since the inception of public schooling in the U.S. for over 150 years. The part about this that feels hopeful is that we are still waking up every day, engaging with youth, participating in life, and choosing the way we participate in the world.

This ability to choose is something that every person has a right to enact. This takes me back to the beginning of this dissertation when I first introduce the idea of rhizomatic rupture.

This study was a way to play with this idea as a theory and explore the possibilities of developing it through further research. What I still believe is that everything is interconnected and the idea of the rhizome is a way to capture that interconnectedness through experiences in learning. What I want to understand more are the causes – the ruptures – that provide growth among individuals to be equipped for the world in which we live. I hope that in future work I can continue to understand these ruptures and maintain a critical lens of how they might dismantle the system as we know it. How might we understand our global impact in a way that both sustains and grows culture in equitable ways? This is the question I would like to explore. This is the foundation that will help to push the idea of citizenship to rupture and create something new in a rhizomatic shoot of our future.

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