Eagle Rock Joins Estes Park High School in Encouraging Active Citizens

Change can often be a good thing, and such was the case last month when we switched up our traditional two-day Eagle Serve program for something new: tasking our students to put in the time, energy, and resources in order to benefit the local community in a new and profound way. In previous trimesters, Eagle Serve challenged returning Eagle Rock students withthe importance of being of service to others through participation in open enrollment courses that drive home the idea of “giving back to the community”— especially for students we believe can become the nation’s future leaders and/or active citizens within their own communities.

But this time around, we partnered up with about 40 students from nearby Estes Park High School  interested in participating in an intense, two-day intercultural conference that we called The Necessity of Exploration. And while the goal of being of service to others hasn’t changed from prior trimesters, we did alter how this is being done.

In order to achieve this, we found it necessary to remove the ignorance over social and cultural issues affecting our local community, and to prepare our students to be of service to others by first recognizing their role in diversified communities. By raising awareness and holding courageous conversations with peers from a local school, our students discovered and uncovered what is missing and what must be done to truly serve others.

So, for two full days last month — Jan. 17 and 18 — students from both schools joined together at the Estes Valley Community Center in hopes of Continue reading…

Eagle Rock’s Students Step Up to the Plate for the Estes Park Community

One of the most important endeavors we undertake here at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center is to instill in our student population a sense of being of service to others. More specifically, we attempt to drive home the concept of “giving back to the community” as a lifelong habit for those who might become the nation’s future leaders or its active citizens.

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This notion of “becoming a better person through service to others,” dates back to Eagle Rock’s beginnings more than two decades ago. To that end, we continue to start off each trimester with an activity we called EagleServe — two full days of campus and community activities that involve each of our students and many of our staff members.

EagleServe connects our campus with our neighbors through service projects intended to help not only the Eagle Rock community, but nearby Estes Park and the greater Estes Valley. These well-planned events took place last Thursday and Friday, highlighted by students working side by side with community members at large.

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EagleServe 71 (the 71 represents the 71st trimester since the school’s founding back in 1993) began Thursday, Jan. 19, with the theme “Solution Focused Leadership” (SFL).

Students and staff members met bright and early in the Hearth area of the Lodge, then split up into project work groups. After lunch, students in each project group began the two-hour process of researching their particular group and coming up with a game plan.

Below are the project groups and their participants: Continue reading…

The EagleServe Has Landed — And Here’s What It Accomplished

John_GuffeyThe tradition of EagleServe — a two-day flurry of service-learning activity at Eagle Rock School — dates it’s origins all the way back to the school’s beginning over 20 years ago, and is born out of the belief that we become better people through service to others.

On the first Thursday and Friday of each trimester, students and staff gather to celebrate the gift of giving by serving the Eagle Rock community, society at large, and often the natural environment.

In keeping with the principles of service learning, EagleServe connects us with service projects that touch on real-world problem solving, where our efforts actually contribute to meeting the needs of others while bringing new knowledge and skills to participants through the process of serving others.

In this regard, ER 66 (the name we give to the 66th trimester since Eagle Rock was founded in September of 1993) has been no exception. The unstated, but ever present theme of “making connections” was evident from the opening gathering in our on-campus Learning Resource Center Amphitheater on Thursday, May 14, to the close of a busy Friday as project teams returned from far-flung flood recovery projects reaching up and down the Estes Valley.  And yes, our surrounding environment is still recovering from the “1,000-year flood” that descended on our community in September of 2013.

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The first highlight in this trimester’s EagleServe festivities was Robin Sukhadia’s Tabla Performance during Gathering on Thursday morning. As many know, Robin taught the Continue reading…

Eagle Rock’s Headed on Spring Break — Here’s How To Reach Us

Come next Wednesday, April 15, it’s going to look like a ghost town around the Eagle Rock School campus as staff, instructors and students take a break from the world of progressive education. Of course, our Professional Development Center will continue work with other schools over the Eagle Rock School break.

Officially, we’re calling it a spring vacation and holiday period, and we’ll all be back in our places by Sunday, May 3. But before all that free time, we’ve still got some activities planned, highlighted by this Friday’s graduation ceremonies. If you get all emotional about pomp and circumstance, you can view the graduation ceremonies live online via the Eagle Rock channel on Ustream.

ER 65 — the 65th trimester in Eagle Rock history — ends for students on Saturday, April 11. Teachers and staff members have meetings and planning days through next Tuesday, and the break begins on Wednesday.

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If you find yourself with a burning desire to reach out and touch someone here at Eagle Rock, here’s your best bet: Send them an email, because some of the staff and instructors will occasionally check their messages during the spring break.

Chances are, most of us are taking advantage of this vacation time to, well, vacation, and  will have very limited availability by phone until Continue reading…

EagleServe: Helping Others in Order to Help Ourselves

Even a cursory glance the Eagle Rock mission and philosophy gives the casual observer the indication that Service with a capital “S” is of primary importance to what takes place here at the Eagle Rock School. We want to develop future leaders who will use their education to change the world — for the better.

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And nothing better illustrates this than our two-day EagleServe events, which are scheduled each trimester like clockwork with the intended goal of serving the Eagle Rock community, as well as the nearby community of Estes Park and the greater Estes Valley.

These are well-planned events where students and staff join up with members of the community, working side by side in the planning, creating and implementing of a variety of projects.

We think it’s vitally important for our veteran students to reconnect with the community and for our newer students to become familiar with our neighbors by stepping outside of themselves to help a variety of people. We choose to incorporate staff into EagleServe — not as supervisors, but to take part in a shared experience with the students.

And that experience, of course, is serving others. We like the oxymoron that you can best help yourself by Continue reading…