The program is called Teaching Resilience: Professional Development for Climate Curricula, and brings in a diverse range of teaching talents including science, statistics, the arts, and included humanities teachers such as North Haven Community School’s Fred Emerick - “We’ve got a project idea that’s in place and ready to begin and I have a model for continuing that beyond this project and a network who I knew but didn't have a relationship with before.”
Newly at the helm of the Education Team for Hurricane Island is Will Galloway - With over 30 years of experience as an educator, mediator, consultant, and most recently as the Head of School for Watershed in Camden, Maine. Galloway’s talent is bringing people together, and that talent has already been put to great use, and will continue as Hurricane Island anticipates the busiest year of programs yet. Whether it is bringing together families, schools, nonprofits, for-profits, students or community organizations, Will hopes to create opportunities for convergence.
Will has a knack for understanding the nuances of leadership as well, “Leadership is the capacity to demonstrate fluid expertise. Which means knowing when to lead and knowing when to join. It’s not one or the other but knowing how to be a part of, and support a group and also knowing when a group looks to you for direction.” and as Hurricane Island continues to evolve and think about how to make change in the world, leadership matters, “It’s not a leadership that imposes but a leadership of supporting.” shared Galloway
He has a track record of success in implementing community-wide sustainability initiatives in midcoast Maine and that track record stretches back to his time in the Peace Corps in Thailand. These successes only come from a sense of coming together in consensus and harmony
“I see Hurricane Island as a really good opportunity to build on the convergence that happens on the island, both with the staff and the students. My hope is to see the sense of community we create here be fully realized when participants return home. I want to use this experience to help plant the seed of what is possible when engaging with one another and their environment”.
Galloway plans to bring a more explicit awareness to the community-building, leadership development aspect of Hurricane Island - something that many feel is necessary against the current backdrop of American and world politics. Concepts like social emotional learning and resiliency draw on moral growth, sense of self, and relationships, and these ideas are increasingly being quantified and prioritized in formal and experiential education alike.
“Through our work at Hurricane Island, our participants gain confidence and grow more vulnerable, they have the courage to engage with one another on a deeper level, and leave seeing one another differently.”
This approach to consider the relationships between individuals and groups, different perspectives, and how to support one another is key to reaching the consensus necessary to approach the politicized large-scale issues posed by climate change in coastal communities like Vinalhaven and North Haven.
In Phase I of this program teachers workshopped with leaders in place-based education and found guidance around curricular design in climate specific content areas, with the ultimate goal of designing a learning project to be implemented in the remainder of the school year. These projects were timely, responsive and relevant to the major changes happening in Penobscot Bay and the Gulf of Maine at large
With an eye towards the fisheries, Vinalhaven science teacher Ruth Brooker, is looking at the lobster industry. In Vinalhaven, lobstering is an extremely visible and important part of the local economy and lobster boats dominate the harbor. “We’re focusing on lobster and sea temperature data” shared Brooker. A Georgia transplant in her first year at Vinalhaven School, she is becoming fully immersed in the ecology around her - just a week earlier she had students participating in marine field research with Hurricane Island, part of a NOAA-funded collaborative study on Maine scallops which includes Colby, Bates and Maine Center for Coastal Studies.