If you asked people to cite advantages of residential schools, the list would start with academic matters: curricula, structure, high incidence of teachers' passion for subject matter, supportive faculty-student relationships, etc. Stephen, a senior, delivers a talk contrasting the architecture of Dubai's Burj Kalifa (the world's tallest building) and Burj Al Arab with other national iconic structures: the Empire State Building, Sydney Opera House and Taipei 101.
The list would go on to include issues of community: shared, reinforced values, peer respect....
Somewhere along the way, we would acknowledge our ability to
act on, to
practice our values. This is true at all levels of the community: trustees voting to construct a biomass plant, teachers and students composting kitchen waste, Housekeeping using eco-friendly products. Dave Elwell and Roger Leach of Buildings & Grounds spoke in assembly recently of two personal initiatives: Dave acquired cedar for use in student boat construction; Roger has been installing motion-detecting light switches in dormitories.
Working in advisee groups, students haul recyclables to a sorting station every Saturday morning after classes.
Here, they work with student volunteers, breaking down cardboard boxes, separating plastics by type and loading barrels for transportation to the town's transfer station.
When the biomass plant was first activated two years ago, we purchased wood chips from relatively distant sources. Today, in a win-win for everyone, our fuel comes from environmentally sound logging operations adjacent to Proctor property. Forestry students visited the site Friday, meeting Proctor's favored logging team of Jack and Jake Bronnenberg.
Jack is an articulate gentleman who is proud to harvest a property in a manner that minimizes impact on wildlife, soil and streams. He emphasizes working off an established plan that anticipates both the marketability of specific products and the health of the forest decades from now. Here he identifies top-grade oak headed for a sawmill. Low-grade pulpwood will be chipped on site for delivery to Proctor's steam furnace.
The completion of a circle: a science class studies in a library heated by steam from a biomass furnace fueled by local wood chips.
The list of advantages of residential schools is long....
