Why We Travel

Why do we travel at Spring Street? Why do we spend four weeks out of the year exploring the
waters of our local Salish Sea, climbing the nearby Cascade Mountains, losing ourselves in the
Met? Our mission as a school is to mentor students to achieve academic mastery, internal
strength, perspective, and integrity. Our philosophy combines traditional academics with
experiential education. To be truly educated, we need academics. We must learn from each other.
We also need to learn from people, experiences, and cultures outside of our school. And most
importantly, we reflect upon all of these. Learning beyond the school campus gives us the chance
to take the theory and knowledge we get in the classroom and apply it out in the field.
This is Spring Street International Schools 22nd year. For over two decades, our school has
provided incredible opportunity for experiential learning. This education begins each year with
the fall hiking trip, where we embrace the tenets of Expedition Behavior. These principles, which
include being as concerned for others as you are for yourself and respecting the cultures you
contact, are incorporated into the classroom. We take of ourselves, we take care of our planet, and
we take care of each other.
The concentrated experiential education component of Spring Street happens in mid-May, and
the curriculum progresses from expeditions that are close to home and shorter in length to those
that venture out further and provide more challenge, culminating in two options for mature high
school students: the opportunity to create ones own learning experience through an internship in
fields such as architecture, veterinary science, guitar building and marine biology -- or -- to
participate in an expedition as close as the Southwest, or as far away as Nepal, Ecuador, or
Spain. An important goal for the Spring Street graduate is that she leaves this school with the
ability to map her own education and, as Ted says, with the capacity to land at any airport in the
world and know how to navigate her way successfully.
This May, students will travel on seven different trips from as close as the water surrounding our
island to as far away as Nepal. May they be uncomfortable; may they be challenged beyond their
comfort zone; may they get dirty, be tired, and be lonely, sad, happy, and experience joy beyond
anything they have known. And may they all return safely, and in reflecting on their travels,
learn to apply what they have learned out in the world to their lives back at home.
5th - 6th grade: Weeklong longboat trip around the Salish Sea
7th grade: 10 days in Oregon and Ashland Shakespeare Festival
8th grade: 2 weeks in NYC and Washington DC
9th 12th grade: 3 weeks walking the Camino de Santiago Northern Route
9th 12th grade: 3 weeks Spanish Immersion in either Ecuador or Peru or Guatemala
11th 12th grade: 3 weeks in Kathmandu, Nepal, including 1 week trekking to the Annapurna
Basecamp.
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. Martin Buber

Louis PrussackHead of School505 Spring Street, Friday Harbor WA 98250360-378-6393

www.springstreet.org