The Learning Camp

Teaching Under the Sky
Connie Steiert - Vail Trail
August 13, 1998

Usually students have to wait for that rare occasion when the mood strikes a teacher to take lessons outside. But at Vail Valley Learning Camp, every class is held in the midst of nature.

And the camp is proving the Great Outdoors is the perfect setting for summer classes in more ways than one.

Vail Valley Learning Camp is an academic summer camp for kids who, as founder Ann Cathcart puts it, either love learning, need a bridge to school, or who have special education needs. In other words, it's a camp for everybody.

Set along the river outside McCoy, the camp is a perfect place for kids to be kids, says Cathcart, and to experience some unforgettable adventures. But the camp's foremost goal is to give children from first grade through middle school a learning boost that will translate into classroom success in the fall.

The children at the camp tend to be divergent learners-children who learn in a different fashion from the majority of their schoolmates. The camp strives to show these students that different does not mean wrong, nor does it mean they cannot learn. Instead, the program's teachers match their teaching methods to the kids' learning styles.

For three weeks, 35 children, ages 7- 14 , strengthen their math and language arts skills in small, level appropriate classes, receiving plenty of individual attention. The camp has several teachers with special education training.

Local education specialist Marty and Helen Weiss, Joanne Clements form Aspen, who has been a special ed teacher for 40 years, and Children's Hospital's Learning specialist Tom Macht will employ a variety of techniques, including the Orton-Gillingham Method, the Lindamood Bell method and varying phonics approaches. With them are equally caring and experienced teachers from all over the country, including Dee Kowalski and Synge Maher from Denver, Steve Buehler from Minnesota, and Mark Cavallerio , who once attended special ed classes himself and is now a graduate from Denver University.

"It's very exciting to see what children learn in three weeks," says Cathcart. The students sleep in four yurts, which sit picturesquely on land leased by Cathcart for five summers while she searches for a permanent site. A cabin serves as both Cathcart's summer residence and a teachers' haven. An old homestead, imported form Grand Lake, acts as the camp's only indoor classroom, with only blue skies for a ceiling, or under the "big top" open-air tent.

Although you might think such a setting would prove distracting, students listen attentively while working from lap-top desks.

The camp is in it's final of three, three-week sessions. Children start their day with breakfast at 8am followed by chores. The kids a responsible for how the camp looks, making their own beds, doing their own laundry and cleaning the yurts, bathhouse and schoolhouse.

At 9am they attend 30 - or- 40 minute math or language arts classes, switching after the first session. There are never more than seven pupils per class, and students are occasionally pulled for one-on-one learning. After a snack break, classes resume until 12:30 p.m.. Lunch is followed by a quiet reading time where teachers read to students, until afternoon activities begin at 1:30 p.m.

Many of the children have spent most of their lives being told what they can't do. At the Learning Camp, they get to discover all the things they can do.. When they complete Meet the Wilderness' challenge course in Minturn or it's 50 foot rock climb and rappel at Camp Hale, it gives these children a sense of accomplishment . As do the bi-weekly horse rides at Alpen-Glow Ranch in McCoy, hikes through the woods, and raft trips down the Colorado River.

"They push their limits," says Cathcart. "In the afternoons they learn what they are capable of." When kids have a learning or physical disability Cathcart says, parents tend to compensate for it.

But by the time they leave the Learning Camp, children - and parents - know they can be successful on their own.

"It's good for everybody," She says. "Good for the family. Good for the children." In the evenings, after dinner, the whole camp engages in kick ball, soccer or volleyball. Then they gather round the fire circle for discussions about what they did or how they feel about their learning differences.

At school, peers sometimes make fun of these children because they don't catch on as quickly due to their divergent learning styles. Too often, it makes them afraid to read out loud, ask questions or take chances.

At camp, they are accepted and they are not afraid to say they do not understand. When you live with a teacher for three weeks, explains Cathcart, it builds a deep sense of trust. "It's a non-threatening environment. The whole fear factor is taken away. " Consequently, children flourish.

Cathcart has received many parental letters thankfully telling her how their children have come home as completely different individuals. And even students who came with their mind up that they wouldn't like an educational camp, are reluctant to leave the program and their new found friends. They leave, says Cathcart, "happy campers." This is the learning Camp's second season as an overnight program, and it's third season of operation. Last summer, the program enjoyed great success as well, and 37 of those children returned this summer. In fact, all three sessions quickly sold out. So successful has this year's offering been, Cathcart is considering adding a fourth session next year and. Possibly a shorter session for younger campers as well.

"We've been able to show there is a need in the valley for this kind of camp," says Cathcart. And the experience, she adds, has been the best of her life.

For more information on the Learning Camp call Ann Cathcart at 970-926-2706.