Many high school kids play basketball, football or soccer after school.
But students at Blue Ridge – a private boys’ school in Greene County – have another option. They’re learning outdoor skills.
The Blue Ridge School is 20 miles northwest of Charlottesville and a world away in rural Greene County. With a student body of less than 200, it boasts small classes dedicated to nurturing courage and perseverance among other things.
Toward that end, associate headmaster Vinton Bruton leads an after school program in outdoor skills. “How to make a shelter with a tarp, how to find and clean water, how to make a fire. Navigation is really important. I think there’s a lot of both utility and confidence for old school map and compass skills,” Bruton explains.
The kids hike and bike, kayak and canoe, learn to fish and to track animals. “The boys are always impressed and maybe a little nervous when you can point out: ‘That’s a bear, that’s a coyote, okay that’s just a possum. Don’t worry,’ but I just think the interaction with the natural world is just inherently good.”
And they enjoy shooting clay pigeons according to Hans Hermanson, who also teaches outdoor skills. "That’s been something the boys look forward to every year is being able to see the little clay discs turn to dust."
Unlike Bruton, he trains students to survive in the cold. “We are outdoors all winter regardless of the weather, trying to get them to build fire by friction as the rain is coming down, turning to ice," Hermanson says. "It’s amazing to me the resilience that you see once they are set on a task.”
And they achieve their goals without the help of their phones. “Getting outside affords them that opportunity to sort of drop back into themselves and recognize that there’s a world out there that they’re just missing.”
Hermanson thinks boys are more willing to try new things, to take risks, if they don’t fear embarrassment. “The boys are afforded the opportunity to figure out who they are without the social pressure of trying to impress females, and you end up seeing our students trying things, getting out of their comfort zone way earlier than I think that they would have had they been in a coed school.”
While girls are not enrolled at Blue Ridge, the student body is diverse with about 30% of students coming from other countries – among them Wai Kwan Ng. who admits he wasn’t a great student in China. His parents resolved to send him to boarding school in the States, and Wai Kwan began shopping online. “I looked at their website, and the second I looked at their outdoor program I just fell in love with it and told my parents, ‘I need to visit this school.’”
He says most Chinese people have lost their connection to the land. Wild places have often been exploited for financial gain and wildlife is rare. “If people see a squirrel, the will chase it and take pictures of it,” he says.
But he feels his country is at a turning point now – ready to try and restore nature. “So it used to be people trying to squeeze into cities, trying to find opportunities. Now it’s people trying to walk out of cities – trying to find a place to relax and a place to enjoy. I can see myself becoming like an outdoor teacher.”
First he plans to get a degree from George Mason in environmental studies. Then he’ll head home to share what he’s learned from teachers like Hans Hermanson.
“Nature is not an enemy or something to fight, but once you feel comfortable and you have the skills there’s a peace that comes with that,” Hermanson says. And for those who don’t get enough of the outdoors during the school year, hiking the school’s 750 acres, Blue Ridge students can sign up for summer field trips to backpack and raft out west.
