Instructor Orientation is in full swing here in Washington State and I am incredibly impressed with our 2013 instructor team.  They are an exciting and impressive team of role models.   The caring and inclusive camp culture our instructors are forming will serve as a model for our students as we build our Adventure Treks communities.

Our 2013 Instructor Team (Click to enlarge!)

One of our themes for Instructor Orientation this year is Smart vs. Good.

If you as a parent actually had to choose, would you choose for your child to be a smart kid or a good one?  Of course, it’s a ridiculous question; we want both for our child! But if we had to make an absolute choice, I would imagine most of us would choose “good” without too much hesitation.  But if you look at parental priorities in our country, many of us parents are actually prioritizing the smart, over the good.  Just take a minute and look at where we invest the most time.

By smart, my definition doesn’t mean only grades, SAT scores or admission to elite colleges. It also includes asking our child to become exceptional through their extra-curricular achievements such as soccer, dance, drama or a similar activity.  If we put as much effort in focusing our child towards being exceptionally good rather than exceptionally smart, we might be doing our child (and the world) a greater service.

Rather than focusing on outcomes (like soccer scholarships or admission to an elite college), Edward Hallowell in The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness shows that focusing on creating good habits during youth is the best way to help our children become successful. Creating habits that build joy, self-esteem, social achievement, self – efficacy and optimism in youth equips our kids with the real tools to experience greater success later in life.

Staff spend time in clinics covering topics from risk management to the creation of incredible student and staff communities.

Assuming that your child’s spring (like mine) has been filled with standardized tests, recitals and soccer tournaments, we are readying our Adventure Treks Instructor Team to be eager to engage your teenager through exciting activities.  We are eager to get kids away from the, achievement oriented “digital wonderland” in which we live and immerse them in the outdoors. We are going to give them a boundless choice of exciting activities and fun adventures.

We surround our students with optimistic and larger than life role models.  We have specifically designed our counselor orientation this year to help give our team the tools to focus on building confidence and self-esteem, social achievement and self – efficacy in our Adventure Treks kids. All of this while emphasizing “21^st century skills,” communication, collaboration, leadership, critical thinking and creativity.

Instructors take a break to play a game of “Ninja” at staff orientation.

We begin by creating a comfortable and cohesive community that appreciates and recognizes both joy and play. We’ll give teenagers the opportunity to try many new activities, most of which they will come to love.  From simply setting up a tent, to rock climbing, rafting or mountaineering, our students get to practice and gain new skills.  These genuine accomplishments build competence which is reinforced through public recognition in our evening meetings.  Competence begets confidence and repeated success builds optimism.  Breaking skill attainment down into small and fun measurable goals builds the belief that one can be in control of their eventual success. This promotes self-efficacy.  Meanwhile the “Good” is constantly being reinforced through modeling and recognition.

We will break a lot more of the theory behind the fun at Adventure Treks down in later blogs throughout the summer, but I wanted to give you a brief overview of some of the philosophy and substance that is permeating our staff orientation this year.

The next blog will have a full report and a video from instructor orientation.  Know for now that we are very hard at work preparing and training for the summer.  We are getting very excited for your child to arrive. We know of nothing that is both as fun and as good for them as Adventure Treks,  A.T. might even be better than “eating your vegetables!”

Have your child arrive ready for fun and adventure, we will let the “Smart” take a break for a little while, and foster the “Good!” After all …it’s finally Summer!

We are counting the days until we can welcome your child to Adventure Treks.

Best, Dock

We are excited to announce our 2013 Adventure Treks Instructor Team. This year we will have a total of 70 instructors. They average 27 years old, hail from 21 different states and collectively have 220 years or an average of over 3 years of Adventure Treks experience apiece. Over 60% of last years instructors will be returning this year. (Our return rate has exceeded 60% for the past 18 years.) Every instructor has at minimum a Wilderness First Responder medical certification and several instructors are trained as Wilderness EMT’s. All have significant experience working with  youth outdoors. More importantly, they are impressive role models.

A Group photo of our 2012 instructor team. Many faces remain the same for 2013!

Virtually every instructor is a college graduate and 28% hold or are working towards an advanced degree. During the rest of the year our instructors are teachers, graduate students, ski instructors, professional ski patrollers, professional mountain guides and professional outdoor educators. There is also a doctor, a school founder, a personal trainer, and a college professor. We have instructors who have biked across the country, paddled the Mississippi River, hiked the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail and lived, worked and traveled all over the world.

We began with over 600 applicants to hire the 28 instructors who will be new to us this year.  Each new hire had three separate interviews, four reference checks and a thorough background check. We are excited to welcome these folks to our Adventure Treks community.  They are an impressive group and have much to add to our team. Having personally interviewed every new instructor, I am excited to watch these outstanding and committed role models inspire our students.

Our senior staff; trip leaders and regional directors begin a four day retreat near Mt Hood in Oregon on June 5th. Our entire instructor team meets north of Portland on June 11 for 7 days of intensive orientation. On June 17, our instructor team breaks into their 6 person staff teams to do an additional week of trip specific training before they greet their students.

There is something about the camaraderie of Adventure Treks instructors that makes us friends beyond the summer. Being role models, we know that the energy we invest in building close friendships with each other and the kindness and respect with which we treat each other filters down to our students. One of the reasons, we have a lengthy orientation is so we can build relationships that will help us work better together during the summer. When we watch our students treat each other with great respect and form close communities, we know we have done a great job modelling.

We are excited for the summer to begin.

Best, Dock

Congratulations to our many high school seniors who will soon be graduating and heading off for college or a gap year. Below is a list of the schools they will be attending. Congratulations for successfully steering through the stressful college “sorting hat.” We hope you have chosen a school that is a good fit for your personality, abilities and interests. We think college placement is all about the right match; it’s too bad some parents have taken what should be an individual process and turned into a giant contest.

We hope you will continue to pursue outdoor activities in college and join your school’s outdoor club. Time spent engaged in outdoor activities in college, besides being fun, active and great way to meet folks, is a wonderful way to stay grounded and gain perspective as you navigate the exciting whirlwinds ahead.

We hope nobody chooses to attend Adventure Treks solely to get a good topic for a college essay! In fact, we hope nobody does anything with the intent of building a better resume. As you can see from the list below, Adventure Treks kids get accepted to amazing schools. This is because we begin with phenomenal kids. It takes a special person to choose an Adventure Treks summer and colleges understand that the communication skills, resilience, collaboration and contribution ethic fostered through an Adventure Treks experience correlates well with success at college. At a time when only 46% of entering college freshman actually graduate from college, (the US is ranked 18th behind Slovakia) we hope that the character, grit and resilience enhanced through the Adventure Treks experience, will help our students thrive in college.

Having talked to dozens of our AT graduates in college, they relate that because of their Adventure Treks experience, they felt far better prepared for college than their peers.

“A.T. did a phenomenal job preparing me for the transition to college. I had the ability to adapt to new and changing situations. I knew how to meet people and how to work with different kinds of people. I have seen many of my friends struggle with the transition, but it’s been easy for me.” —Christopher, University of Richmond

“A.T. made me more comfortable in my skin; so when I got to college I didn’t have to try and be anybody but myself – It was refreshing and empowering.” —Max, Stanford University

“At Adventure Treks you learn how to help out and look out for others, how to thrive when things aren’t easy and how to see a bigger picture beyond yourself. A.T. gave me the confidence to lead a school organization my freshman year and it means I am always the one doing more than my share in our apartment and in project groups.” —Jake, Ohio State University

“A.T. built my confidence and helped me become more outgoing. I learned that people liked me for who I am. I learned how to be a strong member of a community and how to thrive without electronics. When I got to college, I didn’t try to be anybody other than myself and didn’t get sucked into the endless video games and partying that dragged down many of my male peers.” —Sam, Iowa State University

Well here it is: The 2013 Adventure Treks College List

Dan Snyder – Hamilton College
Antoine Karsenty – Columbia University      
Noah Webb – Brown University
Yasmeen Almog – Princeton University
Adam Kleinman – University of Illinois
Ian Newcombe – SUNY – Syracuse
Joby Bernstein – Dartmouth College
Dylan Kallenbach – UNC Chapel Hill
Sam Wyman – Union College
Ben Lemli – UNC – Asheville    
Isaac Green – Dartmouth College    
Lizzie Dahler – Davidson Honors College at The University of Montana
Bergen West – Warren Wilson College
Will Behner – Florida Southern University
Kyle Hall – UNC – Chapel Hill
Jacqueline Guyol – Hamilton College
Natalia Lutterman – Gap Year abroad then UNC – Chapel Hill
Page Nevel – Salem College
Sophie Jenkins – UNC – Chapel Hill
Bennett McCoy – Brevard College
Wesley Cutler – Washington and Lee University
Zach Oelsner – Occidental College
Dominique Heijer – UCLA
Jordan Barhydt – Cornell University
Madison Hetzner – University of Chicago
Molly Koeneman – James Madison University
Jess Bosshard – DePaul University
Andy Thompson – Brown University
Max Justicz – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T)  
Alexa Krichmar – University of Florida
Jack Geduldig – Bucknell University
Matt Haeffner – Ithaca College
Catherine Swaiden – University of Southern California
Luke Friedman – Dennison College
Sam Conant – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Tyler Kelsall – Dartmouth College
Josh Keener – Northern Arizona University
Matt Hermann – Hamilton College
Andrew McBeth – Savannah College of Art and Design – Hong Kong Campus
Erica Gilgore – University of Vermont
Amy Sublett – California Polytechnic Institute
Mariana Gonzalez – University of Texas – Austin
Player Lowndes – College of Charleston
Kamber Moss – University of Pennsylvania
Josh Strayer – University of Pittsburgh
Hannah McKinley  – UNC – Chapel Hill                                                                     
Eric Przedpelski – College of Charleston
Brad Przedpelski – Gap year then Furman University                                                              
Billy Handelsman – Alfred State College                                                           
Sophie Grossman – University of Puget Sound

The quote below is extracted from Simone D’Luna’s 2012 College Essay to Dartmouth

I learned resilience, both of body and mind. If my feet were wet for days, I would live. If I was thigh-deep in mud, I would manage. If I had to hike 17 miles in one day with a 40-pound backpack, I could do it. My experiences endowed me with a sense of self-reliance, and realizing I could survive in harsh conditions gave me confidence in my coping abilities. Each summer, as I stood atop a new peak, I felt increasingly prepared for the difficulties of life – or at least adolescence.”

Coming in next week’s blog – our 2013 Instructor Team Biographies!

36 days until Adventure Treks staff training begins!

We are excited
Best, Dock
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