Students learned to see their lives as heroic journeys in Shane Nelson’s humanities class at Animas High School last year.
“It was really great because a lot of us didn’t understand life at all. ... We didn’t understand that hard times are a part of life and that there’s always a way through or a way around,” said Annabelle Mick, a junior.
The curriculum was built around author and teacher Joseph Campbell’s theory that heroes across cultures and time periods share a similar journey into the unknown where they face challenges, temptations and transformation. During the year, Nelson also asked his students to reflect on their own lives.
“We definitely became more like a family than friends because we knew everything about each other,” Mick said.
Students found the class helped them re-engage in school.
“A student sent me an email saying that because of our class – and this was only about a month in – she had stopped cutting (herself) and she wanted to come to school,” Nelson said.
Later in the year, a school counselor screened Animas students for suicide risk and depression. While the survey could be anonymous, many students put their names on the documents.
“When they put their name on it, they are literally telling you, ‘I want help,’” he said.
The small class sizes at Animas, a school of about 250 students, allow teachers to closely monitor teens. They will work with nonprofits, health care providers, parents, law enforcement and other groups if a student is in crisis.
“We do not take crisis lightly and do not assume to handle escalated, extreme risk and emergency situations without specialized support for the student and their families,” Nelson said.
After last semester, the need to teach greater character development, resiliency and life-coping skills as part of traditional classes was clear to Nelson.
“You can have academic rigor and excellence and infuse character development at the same time,” he said.
The humanities class and Nelson’s previous experience in wilderness therapy inspired him to create a school-based suicide prevention and character development program called Project Basecamp. The program is designed to prevent mental crisis, encourage students to advocate for themselves and build strong bonds between students.
The Colorado Education Initiative selected Project Basecamp as one of the 10 most innovative ideas in education in the state, and Nelson had the chance to develop it over the summer with other Colorado educators.
He launched his idea this fall as a psychology class at AHS called adolescent development, with some students who were hand-picked and others who were randomly selected. The semester-long course has a fluid curriculum, but Nelson expects to teach aspects of the hero’s journey and incorporate rafting and camping trips as well.
As a small school with a project-based learning model, AHS lends itself well to the outdoor experiences that will help reinforce the classroom lessons, Head of School Sean Woytek said.
“There is a ton of research out there that shows if you get students out into nature and get them into a little bit more uncomfortable situations, they are able to really dig into the topics and be able to understand them and remember them, internalize a lot better,” he said.
The class will also allow students to put what they learn into action, he said.
Each student will be expected to contribute to a mental health guidebook for teens and create their own project that communicates what it is like to be a teenager today, in their opinion. Students are making movies and writing songs and poems for their creative project, Nelson said.
As part of the work on the guidebook, Nelson asked his students to identify some of the causes of depression and risk factors that can lead to suicidal ideation as well as possible preventive steps.
They identified many of the same risk factors listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: bullying, isolation, abuse and neglect, isolation and drug use. Their strategies to prevent suicide, such as consulting doctors and therapists, developing coping skills, engaging in the community, supportive family and having positive outlets, can also be found on official prevention sites.
Nelson wants to see the class forge connections among students so they can see that they struggle with many of the same issues and are on a similar journey.
[image”4]“Every assignment that’s going to be given will have a foundation that will cause introspection, growth, communication with each other and self-knowledge, and we are going to temper that with wilderness experiences,” he said.
As a the founder of a wilderness therapy company, Nelson saw experiences in the outdoors make dramatic changes in the lives of his clients.
Research into quality group wilderness therapy programs have shown they can lower anxiety and depression, improve feelings of self-efficacy, increase interpersonal skills and increase a person’s ability to share their problems, said Megan Wrona, assistant professor of psychology at Fort Lewis College.
The shorter group excursions Nelson is planning are considered adventure therapy, and they are not as well-studied as wilderness therapy, which generally involves weeks outside and formal group therapy with a behavioral health provider, Wrona said.
She expects the effects would be similar and improve relationships between students because they are spending time outside of their comfort zone.
“It just builds more of that collaborative relationship because you are forced to be able to rely on each other in a way that’s different than when you are in a classroom,” she said.
Simply spending time outside is also shown to help improve a person’s mood, she said.
Nelson plans to incorporate weekend excursions and longer summer trips in Project Basecamp. The summer programming will be open to all teens in La Plata County. He expects most of the recruitment will likely be through word of mouth, as his students recruit their friends.
“Project Basecamp is designed based on my 100 percent fundamental belief that the wilderness and the outdoors is the most therapeutic resource we have, and students who get out there and get dirty and fall down and get up become resilient, self-confident teens,” he said.
Because Nelson’s project was selected by the Colorado Education Initiative, he will have support tracking the difference the class makes in students’ self-esteem and improved mental health. He expects curriculum focused on character development and mental health will lead to better grades, he said.
Students will be surveyed before and after the class and at the end of the school year to see if the results lasted. The class will be offered first and second semesters so it can be refined for the second group, he said.
Nelson’s long-term goal is to have a piece of land adjacent to the open space around town to use as a space for the students to meet. He would like students to build yurts on the property so they have a sense of connection to the area.
Project Basecamp is raising money for gear and summer trips at GoFundMe.com/all-forward-wilderness-therapy.
