Geneva Saint Amour in her office.

Further Information: Northpoint Expeditionary Learning Academy Expeditionary Learning Schools - Outward Bound

Crew leaders and community? Expeditions and intensives? Inquisitiveness celebrated? What? No scribbled star at the top of your paper for answering 10 questions properly?

This doesn't sound like the high school I went to when I was a kid, and it probably doesn't sound like the school you attended 20 years ago, either.

Welcome to Northpoint Expeditionary Learning Academy, located in the old Dexter facility on 1st Street in Prescott. After a successful first year in operation, it was time for a bit of reflection on what was great , what was not so great, and what is planned for next year.

Meet Geneva Saint Amour, the director of Northpoint. We caught up with her at Sharlot Hall Museum, at a picnic table under the trees. You might wonder why she's a director and not a principal. Basically, it appears to come down to budgets and the number of students; her administrative duties are the same as a principal, but she does have fewer students attending Northpoint. At this point, it is expected that no more than 100 students per grade will attend Northpoint, even when the school has all four grades.

Of course, that's by design. For the Northpoint model to be successful, a classroom student-teacher ratio needs to be no more than 25:1. Based on the expeditionary learning model, students at Northpoint explore a compelling topic for an entire semester, called an expedition and all their studies are based on that expedition. But, they don't just sit in class and read textbooks, they go out and learn in the community and beyond. This last year, students traveled to the Mexican border, went on backpacking explorations in the mountains, learned how to live in the wild; and, this spring, went into Mexico to learn about marine biology. As you can guess, learning is very hands-on, and reading thick textbooks is not the norm.

Saint Amour points at the Mexican border during an  expedition trip.

Northpoint is different, but how?

While it may take a while for the kids to get used to learning in an Expeditionary school, once they understand how the grading works, and what is expected of them, they tend to really like it. According to Saint Amour, 95 percent of the students have said they are returning next year. They also have seven new sophomores registered, and, even though school has only been out a couple of weeks, 78 freshmen have not only signed up, but gone through the interview process.

That's another difference between Northpoint and other schools: students and their families are required to go through an interview process, so they really know what they're getting into, and are sure that this is a good fit for their personal learning style.

Saint Amour explains, "Some kids are admittedly not an idea fit: not self-motivated, not college-minded and driven in the ways you need to be to be successful in this kind of a learning environment. So much of what we do relies on the students being interested or able to develop an interest. And some students haven't found that in themselves yet. They're still motivated by the token economy of, 'Heres 10 questions, answer them, and you get a star on top of your paper.' And we have none of that in our model. And so for a student who still needs that kind of reward for doing their work, they're not finding themselves satisfied in our setting and then they're bored, and when they're bored they're causing mischief, and when they're causing mischief they're wreaking havoc on the very community that we're trying to develop."

Why care about 'community' at a school?

Developing a community is very important in an expeditionary learning school. It is imperative that the kids learn to depend on one another and work together. Part of each day is spent in crew, a block of time where the kids work together (after all, they're crew, not passengers!) on various projects and topics. During crew times, their instructor is called a crew leader, not a teacher. When they go on field trips, the kids are grouped in their crews. One student, David LaMaster, said, "My crew is like my family. We're really close."

Being close and respecting one another is another important part of the schools foundation. Not only do the students receive grades for their academics, they are also graded on their character, which is a permanent part of their transcript.

Since this is a new approach to learning for most kids and their parents, Saint Amour was asked what she thought was the best thing about Northpoint this year, and she replied, "Probably the change in the students, watching them become more inquisitive and more studious. They learned how to ask more questions, which moves them farther ahead in preparation for sophomore year and even college."

Kim Belli is a parent who has volunteered hundreds of hours at Northpoint, both in getting it established and throughout the year. What is amazing is that her son won't even be a student until the 2008-09 year. When asked why she cared so much about Northpoint, and why she would do so much for the school, she replied, Because not everybody does learn the same way, and, because, the true answer why? My son. That's the true answer. Because I just knew that I could never stick him back at a desk, and that type of learning is an amazing opportunity that people who are willing to not be mainstreamed can take advantage of... It was 2 years ago that he said to me, 'I could never sit at a desk again, I'll never be able to go back to that.' And that was sort of the impetus of the whole thing."

What About Next Year?

Well, students and staff can plan for next year, and they're doing that - choosing expeditions, pinpointing areas that can be improved, cleaning up classrooms and setting them up for a whole new crop of freshmen and returning sophomores. But, the truth is, in a school like Northpoint, the learning doesn't shut down for the summer. Because by now, you see, the kids have been programmed to be inquisitive. And every parent knows that it's pretty tough for a kid to stop asking questions just because school's not in session.