Ponderosa Archives - Eagle Rock Blog

Meet The Team: Brighid Scanlon, Eagle Rock World Languages Instructional Specialist

Our featured Eagle Rock educator this time around is Brighid Scanlon, who joined us a couple of years ago and jumped in feet first. Starting out as a Public Allies teaching fellow in world languages, she taught Portuguese and Spanish as well as music and theater.

Brighid also designed a Telenovela Spanish course, directed our Spring 2013 musical RENT, taught a Brazilian singing class, co-directed In the Heights (Spring 2014) and The Vagina Monologues (Summer 2014), worked in the Improv Ensemble, and is helped design an Arabic course and Spring Awakening and this trimester is teaching a Gender and Violence course. Oh yeah, she’s also a Ponderosa House parent, which she unabashedly terms the best house.

Is there more? You bet there is!

Eagle Rock: What did you do prior to coming to work for Eagle Rock?

Brighid Scanlon: Previous to Eagle Rock, I worked on my master’s degree and taught college Spanish courses at the University of Delaware. In the summers, I headed south, backpacking around Peru and leading international service programs for high school students in Costa Rica through Global Leadership Adventures. I also worked at a multimedia design center where I assisted people with design, video and digital music projects.

ER: What attracted you to Eagle Rock?

Brighid: When I was in high school, I didn’t have a ton of positive relationships with adults. I found my high school classes to be pretty mundane. When I discovered the Continue reading…

Introducing Eagle Rock School’s Latest Graduates

Springtime graduations are among our favorite times of year at Eagle Rock School. It’s an event that coincides with mother birds nudging their young offspring out of the nest, and no, the irony does not escape those of us who educationally nurture these young folks.

In the case of our latest grads — who take the stage starting at 4pm MT on Friday, April 10, 2015 — we’re celebrating the successful completion of the Eagle Rock experience for four inspiring high school graduates, including Song Candea, Sonja Stolmar, Maya West, and Hunter Gantz.

Below is a little background on each, and even a piece of advice from these veteran Eagle Rockers:

Song Candea joined us in ER 57 (the 57th trimester of Eagle Rock) and has been an active member in the Eagle Rock community ever since. He hails from Niwot, Colorado, and resided in Aspen House throughout his three years here.

Song has been described as an incredibly strong leader who leads by example, taking every opportunity given to him to grow as an individual. Because of this mentality, he was recently selected as the Student Wilderness Instructor for the incoming students of ER 64.

His success in his roles with the Outdoor Education department is paving the way for future student involvement. And with this passion for the outdoors he is seeking to major in Outdoor Education while attending Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, beginning this fall. Song also showed his talents as an active member of the musical improvisation ensemble, choir, as well as acting in the play In the Blood.

Song’s advice for all the educators reading this: “Teach students what they want to learn and they will learn it.”

Hunter Gantz is another Colorado native — from Boulder — who also joined us in ER 57. Hunter was immediately drawn to the multitude of music and performance opportunities on campus — from musicals to choir and a cappella, and poetry slams.

Hunter was in the Eagle Rock theater productions of Continue reading…

Meet The Team: Eagle Rock Professional Development Associate Anastacia Galloway

As a professional development associate, Anastacia Galloway does a lot more than just coordinate POLs (presentations of learning), recruit panelists and create schedules. In fact, most of her time is spent working with schools and organizations across the country to reengage youth in their own education.

Anastacia says it’s re-imagining what public education can look like in this country.

In just the past year, Anastacia has worked in Vermont on everything from service thesis projects to proficiency-based graduation requirements. She has facilitated protocols with visiting groups on projects or dilemmas they are experiencing in their schools and facilitated workshops for our licensure candidates.

In addition, this fireball has supported Eagle Rock’s curriculum department by helping to implement student-centered coaching. And last year, she was a core member of our Professional Development Critical Friends group as well as director of the student-led Adult Mentor & Peer Mentor program.

Get to know Anastacia Galloway:

Eagle Rock: It sounds like you have a full plate, but are there other duties you perform at Eagle Rock?

Anastacia: Besides my work as the Professional Development Center (PDC) associate, I’m the house parent for Pinon house. In every sense of the word, house parents are parents — I am my students’ biggest fan and strongest supporter, and I will push them to the edges of their comfort zones. And that means when it comes to keeping their areas clean or becoming leaders in the house or throughout the Eagle Rock community. Four nights a week and one morning, I open my home to them where we cook, make coffee, hang out, and otherwise spend time together.

Eagle Rock: What did you do prior to coming to work for Eagle Rock?

Anastacia: Let’s see, prior to coming to Eagle Rock I had just imploded my life plan. In the fall of 2010, I was in law school with ambitions to become an advocate at The Hague International Court of Justice defending sex trafficking victims, persecuting traffickers and being part of war crime tribunals.

Although I excelled, I regularly pulled all nighters, and I found my personal relationships suffered, and the debt I was accruing was unreal. Reflecting on my motivation, I realized that I didn’t need to become an international attorney to be able to use my talents to contribute to society in a meaningful way.

Prior to going to law school, I spent 50 hours a week in a windowless office building as a logistics coordinator and purchasing specialist for a building supply company the size of Coca-Cola called Ferguson Enterprises.

After graduating in 2008 from West Virginia University with degrees in business and world language, I moved to Villahermosa in Mexico where I interned for a marketing and advertising company, Signo Communicaciones.

Eagle Rock: What attracted you to Eagle Rock?

Anastacia: Since I had just imploded my life plan, I moved to Estes Park with my partner, Kevin, with no idea what my next step would be. In January 2010 I applied for the registrar position at Eagle Rock, thinking, “Other than direct experience with high schoolers, I have the skills and experience to be the registrar.”

When I did my full-day interview, I fell in love with the Continue reading…

A Day In The Life of an Eagle Rock Student

Editor’s Note: Eagle Rock student Jaliza Perez walks us through a typical day for her – from sunrise to bedtime – helping future Eagle Rock students understand the routine here in Estes Park, Colo., on any given school day. Jaliza wrote this piece earlier this year and has since graduated. Her plan now is to start an apprenticeship with Public Allies in Los Angeles doing community-based work.

7:00 a.m.: The sound of an unpleasant alarm goes off and I have no other choice but to wake up. It’s 7 a.m. on a Monday and it’s time to get up and run the gate. I put on my sneakers and walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Once I’m done I hurry down the stairs out of the girl’s wing and head over to where everyone meets to run to the gate that serves as the entrance to our school property and back. Sometimes it takes us only 30 minutes to do the gate and other times it can take longer. Breakfast starts at 8 a.m., so I try to make it back before then. When I’m done I walk into the lodge grab a glass of water and wait for breakfast.

9:20 a.m.: When I’m done eating I head back to my house to get ready for the day. It’s now 9:20 a.m. — just 10 minutes before class. I grab my bag, coat and hat. I’m taking this class called Learning Spanish where we teach Spanish to second graders who are also learning Spanish.

We teach the little kids Spanish one or two days a week, and today is one of those days. So we meet in the lodge before we head out so that my teacher can make sure we have all our materials ready for our lesson plans. After she checks everything we head out to the bus.

At the elementary school I teach three kids how to express their emotions in Spanish. Sometimes I need to remember to have patience with the little kids but for the most part they do a great job of staying engaged. Whenever we go see the second graders I leave in a better mood because they’re always so happy to see us and working with them makes me forget about other things.

11:50 a.m.: It’s almost noon and we’re back on the Eagle Rock campus just in time for chores. Sometimes we will just sweep and wipe surfaces, but if its really dirty we will do a deep clean and leave a note on the whiteboard reminding people to pick up after themselves. By now its 12:30 p.m. and time for lunch! I head over to the lodge and wait for Kitchen Patrol to yell, “Put down chairs.” After everyone helps take the chairs down we can all Continue reading…