Not-so-New Eagle Rockers Embarking on Wilderness Course

After a year of virtual learning and a long-awaited return to the Eagle Rock campus, this trimester is rapidly coming to a close. In the next two weeks, our two newest student cohorts will complete their classes and begin preparation to venture into the Lost Creek Wilderness for their Wilderness Orientation Course.

For decades, our wilderness orientation course has been an introduction and a rite of passage for new students at Eagle Rock. However, for the past three trimesters, the health pandemic put a halt to this tradition. In March of 2020, we sent all of our students home and shifted to virtual classes until it was safe to bring everyone back to campus this March.

Lost Creek Wilderness. Image © Hogs555 via Wikimedia Commons

As a result, and unlike any wilderness orientation before, students embarking in this trimester’s course have already been members of the Eagle Rock community for three to six months, albeit some of it from their own homes. Wilderness participants this time around include two incoming cohorts of students — those in the 82nd and 83rd trimester of our school’s history (ER 82 and 83).

And because those students are currently enrolled in on-campus classes before their wilderness course, they have the opportunity to participate in more prep work prior to the trip. Our wilderness instructors are Continue reading…

Eagle Rock is Scouting for an Outdoor Education Course Manager

If leading a group of incoming students on a multi-week wilderness orientation program at one of the nation’s most progressive high schools sounds like an exciting and rewarding opportunity, then you may be interested in our full-time Outdoor Education Course Manager opening.

Backing up for a moment, numerous studies have shown the benefits of wilderness orientation programs. From metrics associated with fostering a sense of place to those related to social benefit, you don’t have to look very far to understand why curriculum-based outdoor and experiential programming — including a multi-week orientation program like ours — offers tremendous efficacy with respect to student engagement and growth.

Eagle Rock School students participating in a recent Wilderness Orientation Program.

Here at Eagle Rock, our new outdoor education course manager will serve as part of our Student Service Team within our Human Performance and Outdoor Education (HPOE) department. If hired, you will support field-based courses and contribute to residential life on our Estes Park, Colo. campus. Located on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park, this position offers unmatched opportunities for foster rich relationships with students and peers, with the great outdoors serving as your classroom.

Required qualifications and essential tasks of the position include: Continue reading…

The ABCs of Eagle Rock’s Language of Learning

There are times when those of us who communicate on a daily basis in the language of education need to be reminded that our lexicon may not always correlate with those whom we consider extended members of our community. In particular, we’re speaking of the parents, supporters, and friends of Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center (PDC).

In a sense, we’ve created a language of our own over the past quarter of a century-plus, the result of consistent communication both on our own on-campus community members and with our peers at dozens of educational organizations and schools we interact with each year across the nation.

Photo by Markus Spiske (sourced on Unsplash)

What follows is the first of what we hope will become a series of Eagle Rock linguistic ABC’s, with the objective of bringing everyone into the fold of our own lexicon. This first effort, below, is a complete A through Z rundown of terms, titles, alliterations, and programs that describe or explain our special form of work and communication, starting with All Who Dare Continue reading…