Osprey Blocks are three-week long courses designed to engage students through academically rigorous, cross-disciplinary, immersive studies that connect classroom learning to powerful, real-world experiences. The world becomes our classroom, and Osprey Block classes take advantage of the shift in our schedule by engaging in more frequent off-campus excursions and activities, including wilderness-based expeditions and travel. During Osprey Blocks, we hit pause on the regular daily schedule to allow for full immersion into one focused area of study. Osprey Blocks are team-taught, and students receive .5 academic credit upon successful completion, as they do for semester-long elective courses. They are graded using our regular letter grade system. Students in all grades participate side-by-side in Osprey Blocks, contributing to our school culture through collaborative project work and relationship-building.
Personal Reflection:
Reflection Kaitlin Mccullough
I chose this course because I completed a smaller version of it last year and I absolutely loved it! Last year when I completed this course it was only a week long and really only consisted of the actual trip to Mexico and not much other Spanish work before or after. This time around I knew it was going to be much different. Sense this was a 3 week long course there was a whole week before the trip and a couple days after to enhance and improve our language skills and have time to better plan the trip so the trip could be more planned out and we could use the time on the trip to really find opportunities to enhance are language skills and give us as many new learning experiences as possible. For this new trip I really hoped that the group would collaborate and bond with one another. I also really hoped that I would feel more confident in using Spanish in Mexico to connect with others. I was worried about how as an individual that didn't have any close friends going how I would manage myself and get through it without anyone there that I feel very close with. Before the course started I was feeling extremely unconfident in my language skill and felt worried and anxious about using them in real life. My goals were to get better at speaking in sentences in Spanish and be able to communicate about basic things in Spanish with others as well as improving my comprehension for others speaking in spanish. The course and trip was a good experience and definitely pushed me to use my language skills and taught me new words and ideas as well. I got a lot better at comprehending and using basic terms that will help me when traveling and lead me to be able to speak in short sentences. The trip like any had bumps and wasn't all smooth sailing but I kept a positive mindset and really tried to be a kind person that was supportive and made the trip more successful and enjoyable. During this course what I found most interesting was learning about the injustices and problems going on in Todos Santos and then actually getting local high school and community members opinions about what was going on and what their ideas were to get things to change. I found that even with the many obstacles that the town faces, their ideas and determination was inspiring. My biggest takeaway about language and language learning is that if you want to become really good at speaking another language you have to practice just speaking that language and be put into situations where you truly need that language to communicate. During our trip there were lots of times when you could get by with using some english and didn't fully have to rely on your spanish skills but during our trip to the elementary school it was much different. There was practically no English being spoken at the elementary school and if you said an English word the kids looked at you confused so I really had to use the Spanish I knew to communicate. This boundary pushed me and was a milestone for me in improving my spanish. And lastly I learned alot about myself and improved my independence. I'm a very independent person but not having a close friend or a parent pushed me to deal with my problems in an adult-like manner. My biggest successes were using my spanish to speak in sentences at the elementary school as well as finding a new respect and confidence in myself in dealing with tough situations. Being forced to use Spanish or just being silent at the elementary school really grew my understanding of why using another language is so impactful and important and just gave me more real world Spanish speaking experience. And finding more respect and confidence and just a mindset of I can do anything came from tough food situations and tough peer situations that I tried to handle and grow better at handling. The biggest challenges I faced was feeling upset or angry or misunderstood. It was really challenging to deal with that without having my normal support systems and just normacley around me. I got through this by trying to take a moment to myself when I was feeling upset and remembering that everything is temporary and that the trip was for 8 days not forever and with knowing that I tried to make those 8 days as positive as possible. This year I'm in Spanish 4 so I want to keep growing my skills in the classroom as well as practicing with apps, games, and or books that will help me get better at speaking Spanish outside of class. I want to keep learning about different cultures and issues in different places and see how they are similar and different to our everyday life. As well as looking at injustices and possible solutions to bigger issues that we learned about.