Island Institute Fellow Anne Bardaglio looks over a pile of information about Old Fort Western, the Maine State Museum, and Penobscot Chief Barry Dana’s farm. She is putting together a trip for the students from Maine’s thoroughly modern one-room schools. This May, students who, until recently, would have had a hard time getting to know their age-mates from other islands, will assemble to experience some Maine history while enjoying a mainland trip-but organizing a field trip for students ranging from seven to 14, who live on half a dozen remote islands, is no small job.
Students and teachers from Monhegan, the Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut, Cliff and Matinicus Islands now routinely work together on academic projects, visit each other, and support each other through everything from bad weather and bad colds to curriculum design to teenagers packing for the big move to high school.
It seems logical, to the mainlander at least, that island kids might do some things together. In practice, getting islanders together is much more complicated than people tend to realize. When I taught on Matinicus in 1987, there was no mechanism in place to facilitate connection or communication with other islanders anywhere.
The need has been evident to teachers for many years. At the Island Institute’s Island Teachers’ Conference, two days of workshops and networking, island educators for years acknowledged the benefits of working together, but the logistics can be a real hindrance. The Inter-Island Event, a multi-island field day of arts and crafts, outdoor activities and new friendships for island schoolchildren, began around 1990 and has been an eagerly anticipated annual trip ever since…but not everybody can get there every year. The Maine Sea Coast Mission and their vessel Sunbeam have historically played a big part in the effort to get the students together. In 2005, outer islands pastor Rob Benson organized the first Island Middle-Schoolers’ Retreat, a team-building, ice-breaking, no-little-kids event in recognition of the need for teens to find some peer support for the transition off-island to high school. The Island Teachers’ Retreat, held aboard the Sunbeam immediately before each school year begins, offers face-to-face interaction among the one-room school teachers for both socializing and curriculum planning.
Recent advances in telecommunications have opened up opportunities for our isolated schools. Teachers now video-conference for planning, peer support and professional development. Students communicate regularly on Skype using classroom laptops, many provided by the Maine
Laptop Initiative. They can work together in real time-like college students-using Tandberg and Polycom video-conferencing units (each classroom
is equipped with what looks like a wide-screen television for this purpose; many of these were acquired through a U.S.D.A. Rural Utilities Service grant written by the Island Institute). They work together using secure online tools, do lessons on “wikis” (collaborative websites), study with teachers from other islands (for example, Fiona from Matinicus’s reading teacher is on Cliff,) and also find a few moments to chat online about their chores, their chickens, their siblings, maybe their lobster traps. They participate in real-time and online book groups, and post daily data and photographs to their weather blog.
Even more important than the technology, however, are the people who work hard to make the connections between the island schools. Tech-savvy
island teachers make it look easy. Older students help younger kids-that’s the “one-room school” way!
Last spring, collaboration among the schools was formalized with two grants to support ongoing efforts. An Island Institute grant for a Fellow to work specifically on organizing inter-island activities resulted in hiring Anne Bardaglio, who had served as the Matinicus Education Fellow prior to graduate school. Then, Donna Isaacs, one of the Cranberry Isles teachers, helped spearhead a Maine Community Foundation Grant to fund technology support, field trips and inter-island curriculum development.
There is interest among some of the teachers in aligning their curricula more and more, to afford students up and down the coast an opportunity to study together in real time. At this point, many of the islands work together on science and social studies projects, including their current study
of Maine Native Americans. Frenchboro and Monhegan students have been working together this year on
poetry. There are plans for Matinicus to host the Monhegan students this June for a week of theater. There is even talk of some sort of inter-island student council or government.
As Principal Scott McFarland of Mount Desert (whose district includes Franchboro, Swans and the Cranberries) points out, “There is an illusion that our small, remote outer islands have schools that are antiquated and lack the sophistication of mainland schools. The reality is…their remoteness necessitates pushing the technology envelope…and a commitment to the digital age of learning.” As teacher Donna Isaacs observes, “We’re not old-fashioned-we’re cutting-edge!”
Eva Murray is an author and freelance writer who lives on Matinicus.
To read more by Eva Murray, visit www.workingwaterfront.com/evamurray