The World is a Classroom

The Middle School’s long-running Minimester program emphasizes the wonder of experiential learning. 

There was an audible gasp from the Sidwell Friends students when they first spotted the U.S.-Mexico border wall stretching out like a snake along the ridge between San Diego and Tijuana. As trucks rumbled up dusty roads with supplies to make the ever-expanding wall taller, thicker, and more human-proof, activist, educator, and tour guide Nanzi Muro wondered aloud if the wall is doing more than simply keeping people out; if, on a fundamental level, the wall is a physical manifestation of an effort to instill fear. All of which raised the question: How should two countries with shared borders navigate land, community, and cultural identities? 

The trip to the border wall in California was part of the School’s San Diego Minimester trip, one of five travel excursions and over a dozen DC-based experiences hosted by the Middle School each year. Over the week leading up to spring break, Sidwell Friends students in 5th through 8th grade take a hands-on deep dive into an array of topics, from aviation to chess, art to robotics. In addition to travel and local options, Middle Schoolers can also propose their own apprenticeships or do an internship as a teaching assistant in the Lower School. What’s more, financial aid is set aside for Minimesters so that every student who wants to attend a travel Minimester can. “The model is that everybody takes a pause from regular programming and does something experiential for one week,” says former Middle School Principal Rachel Kane, who is now the head of school at Friends Community School in College Park, Maryland. “In addition to the larger country, DC is such an open and available classroom. That’s a huge deal. And it can be fun to operate outside of the normal 40-minute or 60-minute bell-based schedule.” 

Minimesters also operate outside of grade levels. While the travel Minimesters are only open to 7th and 8th graders—with almost all of the slots going to 8th graders—in the local Minimesters, which is what the majority of students join, 5th graders and 8th graders and everyone in between can be found together. In “Creativity, Innovation, & Engineering,” kids across grades tore open printers, computers, phones, and radios to see what apparatuses make them work—and how to rebuild them, or turn them into something new—which left one science lab littered with motherboards, components, gears, computer chips, and screws covering every surface. Kids from every grade also gathered for marathon sessions of Dungeons and Dragons, a week of athletics, or a seminar on creative writing. 

“All of it ties back to the Quaker mission of community,” says Kane. “But a lot of the programs focus on stewardship and equality, too.” 

That was certainly true of the San Diego trip, which explored the history and ongoing challenges faced by migrant communities in the United States with a message centered on resilience and pain as well as the power of good neighbors and sharing cultures. The students, for example, visited the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park, a community garden featuring plants, fruits, and vegetables originally from places like Africa, Mexico, and the Philippines, which have now become native, helping to mitigate flooding and nurture flora and fauna, including the ever-important hummingbird. Like the community members who tend them, the gardens reflect a wonderfully idiosyncratic history. 

As a racket of African turkeys trotted by, Muro explained to the group how the gardeners teach each other about the plants from their homelands, what techniques they use, and how to take this new knowledge back to their own communities so everyone can learn to grow healthy, local fruits and vegetables. Students dug their hands into the dirt, too, planting a pineapple tree and a persimmon tree along the lip of the sprawling community garden. 

The group stopped at the gate of Border Field Park, which has been closed for five years because of the pandemic, new construction, and the political climate. Muro talked about the families who for many years would meet on both sides of the wall for lazy afternoon picnics, games of volleyball where the ball soared country to country, and even makeshift seesaws that defied the wall. Most importantly, families who could not cross the border could visit with each other regularly, share stories and dreams, and touch fingers and faces through the steel slats. This is no longer possible. “It’s so sad to think that’s the only way people could have contact with their families,” said Ainsley Coleman ’29. “And now they don’t even have that.” 

Sidwell Friends students also visited “Whiskey 8,” a stretch of border fence that offers a visceral sense of the current crisis. It is an open-air detention site for those who are attempting to get processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Looking across no man’s land—a strip of land where neither Mexico nor the United States exercises control or claims ownership— Gio Lopez ’29 said quietly: “My grandparents came 40, 50 years ago from Nicaragua. Seeing this, it makes me wonder what they went through.” 

No man’s land sits between a wall on the Mexican side of the border and another identical wall on the U.S. side. Sometimes asylum-seekers are kept in “facilities” like this, which are actually just spaces where migrants can be held out in the elements for days. Muro, who told the group that the majority of the border has cameras and sensors that can see and hear everything, explained that because of wars, violence, and poverty in countries like Panama, Columbia, Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, families will go to extremes to try to make it to the United States. Pressing hands against the wall, one student said, “Think how many fingers have touched these walls, some with happy endings, some not.” 

In the wake of their chilling experience at Whiskey 8, the group felt the strange juxtaposition of immigrants trying to seek asylum and everyday life in a coastal California town. Near the Cross Border Xpress bridge, which features a pedestrian skywalk, people went about their business shopping and eating at a sprawling outdoor mall, the wall looming behind them, Border Patrol SUVs buzzing by on their beats. “People are just living their lives with all of this happening around them,” said George Dogramaci ’29. “It’s the strangest city.” 

Minimester was originally built for 7th and 8th graders in 1982; it grew to include 5th and 6th graders in 1988. Early program offerings, like more recent ones, reflected the spirit of the time in which they were conceived. In 1984, one Minimester choice was “The Days After.” Students examined the possibilities of nuclear war, learned about the government’s civil defense recommendations, heard from doctors about the effects of radiation, and visited fallout shelters. Beginning in the early 1990s, working on the AIDS Memorial Quilt was an option. These days, unsurprisingly, many of the existential Minimester choices tackle climate change. 

Situated in the heart of the lower Florida Keys, Mote Marine Laboratory’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research & Restoration— or “Mote”—is a fully equipped marine science facility dedicated to research and education in this unique ecosystem. It’s also familiar territory for the aptly named Aaron Marine, a Middle School science teacher with a deep connection to this work. After graduating from Coastal Carolina University with a degree in marine science, he did an internship on Pigeon Key, a tiny island—just five acres—not accessible by car that’s known for its oceanic research. From there, Marine began leading ecological education programs across the Keys—including for the Sidwell Friends’ Minimester program. So, in 2011, when Marine accepted a position at Sidwell, he was well-versed with the initiative, and with the exception of the pandemic, he has led a Minimester trip back to the Keys every year since. 

This March, more than a dozen 8th graders traveled to the Keys to stay in a dorm at Mote, which is nestled among reefs, sea-grass meadows, and mangrove forests—most within the protection of National Wildlife Refuges and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. One of the group’s first stops for the week was to the Turtle Hospital on Marathon Key. The low-slung, mint-green buildings were once a sleepy seaside motel, and in some ways the facility is still a motel: Most of the turtle guests are temporary and hope to find themselves once more in their ocean homes. 

Unfortunately, a large minority of the hospital’s turtles cannot be released back into the sea. Throughout the entire ocean, there are only seven living species of sea turtles. Five of those are found in Florida: green, loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, and Kemp’s ridley. All weigh at least 75 to 100 pounds, with some leatherbacks coming in at a staggering 2,000 pounds. With warming waters also changing the location of currents and deep-sea fishing, all are also more and more susceptible to getting struck by recreational and commercial boats, which can dent the turtles’ outer shells and fundamentally disrupt their equilibrium, causing the creatures to list at an awkward angle that makes life a struggle. Those turtles with positive buoyancy syndrome, colloquially known as “bubble butt syndrome” for the way their hind quarters are perpetually at the top of the waterline while their heads point down, can never be released due to their poor chances of survival. The Sidwell Friends kids, who fed the bubble butt turtles in tanks and pools across the hospital’s campus, were as charmed by these reptiles as they were sad for them. 

The students also got to see a live surgery in progress through a window into the hospital’s surgical suite. There, doctors were working on a loggerhead turtle, removing fibropapillomatosis tumors, excessive growths made more prevalent by global temperature spikes that can blind turtles or impede their movements. Turtles often also need surgery for ingesting all manner of manmade plastics, hooks, lures, and garbage that can lodge in their digestive systems, as well as for entanglement in fishing lines, netting, and still more plastics. But most turtles with successful surgeries can be released back into the wild—an event marked by a release party, which hundreds of members of the local community come out to cheer on. 

“Giving kids exposure to this, to get them out and get them excited about these topics is so important,” says Aaron Marine. “And if we have a couple kids who leave and say, ‘Wow, I want to pursue this science,’ that’s huge.” Marine saw some of the students connect what they were learning about in Florida to their more terrestrial interests back home. The kids on robotics teams, for instance, compete in challenges that require remote-operated machines to perform tasks underwater—often in the service of the environment. 

The students also spent time throughout the week paddling across the curled roots and gnarled arms of mangrove forests, which provide flood protection for the islands; snorkeling in turquoise waters off the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States, a reef that feeds native wildlife and prevents coastal erosion; visiting fisheries that balance commercial fishing with sustainability; and learning more about the fragile coastal ecology that allows the hundreds of Key islands to flourish. 

Ocean ecology wasn’t the only serious exploration of the climate during Minimester, though. Sidwell Friends School has also been a longtime partner of the Jackson, Wyoming-based Teton Science Schools, an organization that opens up opportunities for students to learn and engage with nature—and does not allow phones or technology on campus. At first the students on the Tetons Minimester trip were worried about how they would manage a week without their gadgets, but within hours, the blanketing snow, magisterial peaks, and the excitement of strapping on snowshoes and spotting wildlife under the forever blue of the big sky turned their focus away from anything involving a screen or a swipe. 

At the Teton Science Schools, the Sidwell Friends group explored concepts of ecology and biology through outdoor experiences in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, specifically Grand Teton National Park. They studied various plant life through a scavenger hunt and also built large hills out of snow, rocks, and pine needles to simulate the different parts of mountains and how they form. “Being at the Teton School was such a great way to have fun and also learn about things that you do not necessarily learn about in school,” said Tori Shrank ’29. Or, as Everly Gaier ’30 put it: “What a fun way to do school!” 

The group also enjoyed a sleigh ride in the National Elk Refuge and spent a day cross-country skiing at the base of the Grand Tetons, which according to 7th/8th grade math teacher Megan Farrell, was a real highlight. During bus rides to various parks, students looked out the windows and spotted moose, deer, and elk. “It was clear they started to appreciate being unplugged,” says Farrell. “As an educator, it was incredible to witness so much learning take place outside. We spend so much time in the classroom, and this trip was a reminder of how much there is to learn from the world around us. It was an inspiring example of place-based learning at its best.” 

In the American Southwest, a group of Sidwell Friends students went way outside the classroom, hiking across national parks in Arizona and Utah while learning about Indigenous cultures. The 16 boys on the Great Parks Minimester learned about Hopi culture and history and enjoyed a potluck of native dishes at the Moenkopi Senior Center. The students were also taught some words for common items, how Hopi bread (piki) is prepared by stretching thin dough over a hard rock, and how the residents on the reservation still face many challenges. The boys agreed that one of the highlights of the trip was playing a competitive match of chair volleyball with the elders of a Hopi community in Tuba City, Arizona. With each tap of the inflated ball, which was designed to look like the earth, the teams lobbed jokes, cheers, and stories across the net. 

“During our time with the Hopis, students were able to make real-life connections from the stories they read in the on-site museum to actual people who lived the stories they read about,” says Middle School Counselor Bruce Holmes. “To see the smiles on the elders’ faces and witness the students’ joy was priceless. The giving of our time to the older generation and sharing life experiences is something that I know the kids will always remember.” 

The Great Parks trip also showcased some of the most stunning landscapes in the United States while exposing the group to the history and lives of Indigenous peoples of the Southwest. At the Montezuma Castle National Monument, students learned that the façade of the castle—built into the side of a cliff face—protects a set of well-preserved dwellings located in Camp Verde, Arizona, which were built and used between approximately AD 1100 and 1425 by the Sinagua people, a pre-Columbian culture related to many of the Indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States. Seeing the Grand Canyon shrouded in fog and snow that gradually lifted over the morning into an astounding expanse spoke of the timelessness and ever-changing grandeur of nature. 

Along with hikes up canyons and along rocky ridges and a night sky marveled at from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff—one of the oldest astronomical observatories in the country—students participated in service project work, allowing them to interact with the environment in a variety of ways. They helped clear out a water runoff culvert near the Hopi senior center, picked up more than 10 bags of rubbish while weeding gardens in Bacavi Village, and pitched in to paint route markers at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. “I loved watching the kids pet pigs, dogs, and cats at the animal sanctuary,” says Liberty Swift, a 7th/8th grade math teacher. “Not only did the kids learn all the animals’ names, but they asked astute questions about the animals and their lives at the sanctuary.” 

“The students were curious and generous and, of course, with a group of 16 boys, the energy was palpable the entire time!” laughed Stephen Armandt, a 7th/8th history teacher. 

The minimester model is that everybody takes a pause from regular programming and does something experiential for one week. In addition to the larger country, DC is such an open and available classroom. That's a huge deal. And it can be fun to operate outside of the normal 40-minute or 60-minute bell-based schedule.rachel kane

Back in Washington, DC, there was still an element of travel to be had. One local Minimester, “Ride the Rails,” took Middle Schoolers underground to ride DC’s metro lines from end to end. Every day was a field trip that involved discovering new neighborhoods and landmarks. The group even went behind the scenes at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to talk to transportation experts about how the DC metro system works. 

“Sometimes teachers feel torn between getting out into DC for their own class field trip but then potentially creating an issue for another colleague who then has to give up class time to make it work,” says Kane. “By pausing all normal instruction for Minimester, there just isn’t that tension. And DC is an amazing classroom.” 

To wit, the “Barrios Latinos” Minimester saw students visiting neighborhoods where Spanish is the primary language and cultural traditions from Latin America are strong. Through community centers, museums, and local businesses, the Sidwell Friends students got a firsthand feel for the flavor of each enclave. They also visited the National Museum of the American Latino and sampled the irresistible cuisines of Mexico and El Salvador. Similarly, in “A Taste of China,” kids in all four grades of Middle School visited the Chinese Embassy, went to the National Museum of Asian Art, explored DC’s Chinatown, learned calligraphy, cooked authentic Chinese food, and watched popular Chinese movies and shows. 

Another group of Middle Schoolers joined the “Go Wild” Minimester, which allowed kids to visit the National Zoo, go to NOVA Wild to learn about conservation, meet with a Montgomery County Police Department K-9 handler, and spend time at the Humane Rescue Alliance. 

“Teachers feel empowered to partake in the process when they are able to pursue something that is a passion project for them or something that they’re usually not able to do in their classroom,” says Middle School Assistant Principal for Student Life Jenny Shen, who embarked on a Sidwell Friends Venture Grant this summer to explore how to capture Minimester magic without overloading teachers. “The essence of Minimester is getting both the adults and the kids to experience a different type of learning than they’re used to during the regular school year.” 

There are passion projects for the students, too. For Mackenzie Goins ’31, Minimester provided an opportunity to revisit a place she loves: the Lower School. Instead of joining a topical Minimester, Goins did an internship in her favorite division. “I love the Lower School and missed being in that environment,” she says. “My favorite part of being down there was being able to teach kids in P.E. Also, I really loved teaching preK. One thing I learned is that teaching is hard—especially when trying to get the kids to listen.” 

None of this happens without Kafkaesque levels of logistics, partnerships, and coordination. And none of it happens without Cate Woodward, the assistant director of Auxiliary Programs. She ensures every medical form and permission slip is filled out, wrangles transportation and accommodations, acquires brown-bag lunches from the cafeteria, fields dozens of phone calls from parents and staff, and troubleshoots at every juncture. Woodward thrives on it. “The best part is getting to see the pictures and hearing from the kids and the chaperones about all the wonderful experiences they had,” she says. “It makes it all worth it!” 

Meanwhile, far from the chasms of the Grand Canyon, the snowy peaks of Wyoming, or the sandy beaches of the Keys, another Sidwell Friends group was looking at culture from another angle—one with a bit more song and dance, with a trip right into the center of Times Square in New York City. The 8th graders on the “Bright Lights, Big City,” Minimester went deep into character for an exploration of all things Broadway. 

Amid the Blade Runner-like urban extravaganza that is Times Square, with walls of light and moving images, costumed characters dotting every corner, and theaters tucked down every side street, 15 Sidwell Friends students walked among the chaos—perhaps even with wide eyes and big dreams. The group saw no fewer than four of the season’s biggest shows: The Outsiders, Maybe Happy Ending, Romeo + Juliet, and Little Shop of Horrors. But along with the glitz came a very real-world education in what working in the theater world actually looks like. 

In a panel discussion with a who’s who of Broadway—and of film and television—students spoke to performers, choreographers, production designers, sound engineers, costumers, and other creatives who live in this world every day. (The group included not one but two stars of Apple TV’s hit Bad Monkey!) “This was a rare chance to hear from those who are living and breathing this world,” says Middle School theater teacher Quinten Madea. “The students could gain insights, inspiration, and guidance that can shape their own journeys in theater. What made this panel even more special is that these professionals offered their time purely out of passion. Their generosity spoke to the power of theater as a community.” 

The Sidwell Friends students also took a course in stage-fighting, learning how to mime realistic and dramatic fight scenes. They went to the Broadway Museum for a look at iconic moments in New York theater history, like those that challenged societal norms, pushed creative boundaries, and paved the way for new artists. And, of course, they all posed for their very own headshots. “As someone who hopes to work with movies when he grows up,” says Theo Scoblic ’29, “this Minimester taught me to think more deeply about art.” 

Back in San Diego, there was also a focus on art. The students visited the Front Gallery, an art gallery, arts education space, and meeting venue for community residents and artists in San Ysidro, a neighborhood just north of the border. Students were drawn to the different mediums— paintings, photography, videos, installations, fabric arts. One painting, in particular, struck Amina Madati ’29. It featured a close-up of a woman’s ruddy face with three gashes sewn with actual crisscrossed string stitches. The painting explored themes of resilience, repair, and the ongoing struggle for wholeness. “It’s interesting that the needle and thread hang down past the frame,” said Madati. “It’s like she’s in process.” 

Some of the students said Chicano Park was their favorite part of the journey. Home to the largest concentration of Chicano murals in the world, the 7.9-acre park emerged from a community “takeover” of land intended for a California Highway Patrol station, becoming a symbol of Chicano self-determination and cultural expression. “The stories definitely show the combination of courage and struggle,” said Ayja Dietrich ’29. “You can almost see it in the brushstrokes.” 

“I like that people can understand the stories even if they can’t read,” said Abby Foster ’29. Morgan Heyliger ’29 added, “What I love about the park is that there is room for more murals, for telling more visual stories of the ongoing struggles and the fight to overcome them.” 

The San Diego Minimester explored the relationship between the sister cities of San Diego and Tijuana and their vehement desire for a strong and equitable community despite living side by side with the reality of the two nations’ ongoing border crisis. Along the way, however, the group enjoyed some more carefree adventures, too. A sailing tour meant spotting local pelicans, seabirds, and playful sea lions basking in the sun. And the kids saw various stars and planets up close through telescopes during an astronomy presentation from StarDude Astronomy, which provided an interpretation of the night skies—skies, like Minimester classrooms, that have no borders.