For 25 years, Cary Academy has been recognized as a school that pushes the envelope of what is possible, modeling institutionally the very qualities we hope to instill in our students: leadership, curiosity, open-mindedness, and a willingness to think outside of the box, take risks, enthusiastically challenge norms, and relentlessly ask, “Why?” “How?” and “What if?”
Last year, we were honored to have our reputation as a national and global leader in secondary education and experiential learning affirmed with CA’s selection as host for the 2023 Independent School Experiential Education Network’s (ISEEN) Winter Institute. What better way to put an exclamation point on our first 25 years than a week spent learning, collaborating, and envisioning the future with other educational innovators?
In January, CA will welcome over 150 of North America’s most forward-thinking educators for a hands-on, multi-day experiential learning conference. Carefully chosen, the Institute theme, Empowered ExEd: Sustained Partnerships and Student Leadership, highlights two important aspects of our work we undertake in our Center for Community Engagement.
CA prides itself on empowering students with chances to grow as leaders and community members. We’re known for producing thoughtful, creative, and risk-taking graduates and engaged citizens as a result.
Almost nothing at CA functions without student involvement and co-creation. Think about our clubs, affinity groups, X-Day, Discovery Term, athletics, and a host of interscholastic competitive programs (speech and debate, HOSA-Future Health Professionals, robotics, Science Olympiad, United States Invitational Young Physicists
Tournament, Conrad Startup Challenge, etc.)—all of them feature students leading, guiding, and mentoring their peers.
Our theme also points to the myriad sustained partnerships that our students and employees leverage to enhance learning. Our service-learning program alone connects our campus to dozens of excellent organizations that serve those in need in our community, across the state and country, and around the world. Examples include Backpack Buddies and Transplanting Traditions in the Middle School, as well as Dorcas Ministries, Read & Feed, and community food banks.
In addition, collaborators like District C, an experiential learning nonprofit, and Essential Partners, with whom we partner for our Dialogue Across Difference program, build our capacity as both students and educators to work effectively in teams— lessons that carry over to the classroom and across campus. In the last six years, over 150 different local businesses, nonprofits, artists, and government agencies at every level have hosted Chargers as part of our Work Experience Program. The list of partnerships is long—and growing.
The ISEEN Winter Institute will kick off with a keynote by Columbia University Professor Dr. Bettina Love, whose work in the realm of creating truly inclusive, anti- racist schools, is deeply resonant with the values of both CA and ISEEN. She will help connect the dots between a focus on building an equitable school community with one that also nurtures and promotes student agency and experiential learning.
As is Institute tradition, the first full day will involve participants learning in the preferred experiential style of the host. We’ll be taking a page out of CA’s X-Day playbook, partnering faculty with student leaders to develop and co-lead ExEd in Action Workshops that use the entire Triangle as their “classroom.”
A few examples that are already under development include a visit to a Chapel Hill tiny house community to learn more about the growing movement and its capacity to address housing and sustainability issues; a tour of Historic Stagville and Black Wall Street to learn about the history of Black leadership and success in Durham and the current issues facing the community; and an investigation into the interracial history of Southern barbeque and the social justice questions raised by Southern Foodways, which will culminate in a delicious group- prepared meal.
On the second day, CA will lead conversations centered on the ways in which we work to deliver on our mission every day. We will discuss the many components that go into (and challenges that come with) being a learning community dedicated to discovery, innovation, collaboration, and excellence and guided by a commitment to respect, integrity, and compassion.
The Institute will wrap on Friday morning with a deep dive into the theme of sustaining partnerships and another keynote address by a good friend who has built these partnerships in other schools. Watch for more on that as we finalize commitments.
CA has a lot to share with our ISEEN colleagues next year, just as we always have more to learn. We are honored by the vote of confidence represented by our selection by ISEEN, a welcome acknowledgment that we are on a promising path and serving as a genuine leader in this work. We have no doubts that the students and employees in this dynamic and innovative learning community will shine.