Beyond The Classroom: Why Ridgeview’s Outdoor Education Program Complements a Classical Education
In this episode, we sit down with Mrs. Carvalho, our Outdoor Education Coordinator, and Mr. Lautenschlager, a Ridgeview parent, to discuss the growth and impact of Ridgeview’s Outdoor Program. They share their backgrounds, what brought them to Ridgeview, and how the program has evolved over the past decade. Together, we explore the benefits of time spent in nature, how outdoor experiences support student fitness, character, and academic growth, and why these trips complement our classical curriculum. We also highlight the value of parent participation on trips and why the program is meaningful for all students, not just those who consider themselves outdoorsy.
00:06:30 – Outdoor Education and Classical Education Working Together
00:16:00 – Why Outdoor Education Matters in Northern Colorado
00:19:30 – The Lasting Impact of Outdoor Education at Ridgeview
Read The Transcript:
00:00:00 [INTRO MUSIC]
00:00:14 Mr. Anderson
Hello and welcome to Hoplite Radio, an educational podcast by Ridgeview Classical Schools,
which explores the importance of classical education in a modern era.
My name is Derek Anderson; I'm the Headmaster at Ridgeview Classical Schools.
And today, we are joined by Kristen Carvalho and Ford Lautenschlager, a parent at Ridgeview,
to talk about the outdoor program and how this fits with a classical education and
what it means in terms of the development of our students.
So we'll begin with Mrs. Carvalho and give a little bit of an overview of her background
and how she came to lead the outdoor program. So Mrs. Carvalho, when was the first time that
you set foot on Ridgeview Property?
00:00:58 Mrs. Carvalho
Well, I first set foot on Ridgeview Property as a sophomore. I think, I came to do a tour with
Peggy Schunk. My family had moved to Fort Collins from a tiny little mountain town called
Westcliffe, Colorado, where I had grown up on a ranch. And we were looking for options
because my parents were a little bit worried about me going to one of these big schools here as a
new-to-town kid. And so we came to the tour.
Loved what we saw. I was super excited to get started.
And since then, I went away to CSU, got a degree in microbiology, did some work in about
other schools that were in different districts around the state. And then I really realized there was
a huge value to being a teacher at Ridgeview and I came back as a science teacher, worked as a
science teacher for I think about six years. And then we started doing the outdoor program in the
summer. I loved going on those trips just for the fun of being with the students and getting
to know them in a different way, getting to take them on hikes and things like that.
And so in 2020, when we shifted the program to become more of a curriculum at Ridgeview
and I was able to apply to be the full time Outdoor Ed Coordinator, I obviously jumped
at that opportunity and that's kind of how we got to where we are now.
00:02:23 Mr. Anderson
The program didn't initially start in an effort to be a program.
So I think that some of my earliest memories of your involvement in what now is called
the Outdoor Program was really just me convincing first your husband and then you to go on
trips with us.
Can you talk... I guess just give a general outline for people about how that program looked
in its earliest years because I think students now talk about it as though it had always existed
and been a part of what Ridgeview is, but that you and I know that's not true.
00:02:57 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, for sure. It looked very different. I think some of my earliest memories were... we were
doing sort of all sorts of things from paintballing with the juniors to a seventh-grade trip at that
point in time was just a trip to City Park pool because really our focus at that point was how do
we get our students to know each other since we're not a neighborhood school.
We took a couple trips that were really just short hikes. And we remember we have both laughed
a lot about our trip to Fern Lake. We did, it's like a seven and a half mile hike, and with the
group of students we did, it took us like 10 hours. And I always remember one of the boys
packed four sandwiches and he was like, it's not enough- I'm starving, Mrs. Carvalho.
So yeah, it's come a long way.
I think we've built it obviously into more of a cohesive program because our objective has
shifted.
00:03:52 Mr. Anderson
So, before I go to Mr. Lautenschlager, what would you say the pros and cons are in terms of if
you were a strictly biology teacher in the way that you once were versus leading the Outdoor
Program? Which of these would you prefer?
00:04:07 Mrs. Carvalho
Well, luckily I prefer what I'm doing now. But I think one thing that I do miss is when you're a
classroom teacher, you see your students every day. And so for a long time, I taught sort of that
revolving spiral, I taught fifth grade, seventh grade, and ninth grade, which means I saw students
every day for multiple years at a time.
And so I really, really got to know them. I think the class of seniors now is the last class that I
taught in that sort of spiral. And my relationship with them is just something that I can't match
outside. I can come as close as I can. You know, I get to know kids for six days out of a year.
And that I miss that kind of everyday relationship with students. I also miss the content. I love
teaching biology. It's obviously my favorite subject. So, I miss being able to have that classroom
experience where you can build on what you taught from day to day to day.
00:05:05 Mr. Anderson
Nice. Well, thank you.
Mr. Lautenschlager, so how did you come to be at Ridgeview?
00:05:13 Mr. Lautenschlager
Yeah, so we know about Ridgeview since we moved to Fort Collins in about 2014. My wife is a
public school teacher. So we have products of public schools. She's in the system.
Kind of felt very comfortable with sending our kids there. I've liked the ideas that I knew of a
Ridgeview from very early on. But we were like, well, it's good to try and see how it goes.
Had a good first year experience. (in public school)
Second year, there was some issues just with lack of standards, seeing him digress and his
handwriting, some other issues within the school that kind of led to lack of enjoyment
in school and filling kind of that safety in the environment.
So, for several reasons we kind of made the decision. We need to look at other options.
We felt comfortable with Ridgeview. We looked into Ridgeview. We looked into a few others.
And then we got the call for that he had got the lottery spot. And we met, toured the school,
listened to Hoplite Radio. And here we are. So it's been a really great shift. His love of learning
has returned. The conversations he's had at home have been amazing. I remember like a month or
two into his second-grade year, my son was talking to my younger son who was not in school the
time about poems he learned at school. I was like, oh, this is the coolest thing. Like the
discussions he's having are so much better than where he was previously.
And so in and again, I mean, the handwriting now is like his handwriting was one of the
things that he had to digressed. And now it's like through the roof just so much better.
So we've been very happy with the experience. I’ve absolutely loved it.
00:06:42 Mr. Anderson
Very good. And you and I have had some conversations just about the outdoor program piece of
that specifically in that you had been involved in some outside things where it was evident
that this was an important part of what you wanted for your children's childhood to
contain was some outdoor experiences.
So what do those look like both outside of Ridgeview and what do they look like so far inside
of Ridgeview?
00:07:05 Mr. Lautenschlager
Yeah. So, I mean, that's one of the things my wife and I we when we moved out here,
we love the outdoors; we love seeing the mountains and going out there as much as we can.
So that is something that was important to our kids.
I was a military brat. So, for a period of time, I lived in the Colorado Springs area on the
Academy and going out and just roaming the foothills was like the best part of my childhood.
And I want to give that to my kids as well. And so we found out about an organization called
Trail Life. It's essentially like Boy Scouts. My son's been involved in that for now three years.
And it's been really interesting seeing, you know, so we'll do family hikes, we’ve done some
family camping recently now at my younger sons older.
And so, you know, he's had the experiences of learning some outdoor stuff at Trail Life.
But it's, you know, they- they cover so much and they're covering it with a big group of
kids and they're kind of hitting points every other year or so.
So yeah, he when he came to the Ridgeview, he was familiar with the compass, but he did not
know anywhere near as well how to use it as he was taught last year in second grade. And not
only did he not know as well, but the things that he, I mean, for only going on two trips last year,
you know, he learned that compass, the first one, the refresher on the second one.
And then we just went on Tuesday and he did not need a refresher. He knew exactly everything.
This is where I need to stand. This is how I need to do this and that. So, the two programs that
he's been in both outside of school and then at Ridgeview, you have common with each other
and have strengthened it.
He had compasses when he was a first grader at Trail Life. And then again, now this year, and I
think this year he's honestly teaching the group everything he learned here. So, it's been great just
kind of seeing the airplane and how they work together.
00:08:45 Mr. Anderson
Very good. And I think that the, it's interesting, right? As you mentioned, something about the
elementary participation in the outdoor program. I think a lot of times, whether because of the
photos or videos and things, usually who we hear back from our students about upper school
trips. And of course, the upper school students, as we found out the other night on our full moon
ruck, they would be very happy to make all of those trips more and more extreme.
But that is an element. The elementary element is an element that is new. And Mrs. Carvalho,
maybe you could speak a little bit to that. How has that been developing it? Because that is part I
don't get to experience as much firsthand as I do the upper school piece of it.
00:09:31 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, I think this has really been kind of a wild ride as how I would describe it because- I don't
know of a place that does what Ridgeview does with kids as young as we have. And so, I think
certainly not in a formal school setting. And so, when we started these elementary trips, it was
really a question of what can be done. We didn't know what we could do, what we could teach to
kids that were that young. We didn't know if they would absorb how to use a compass or how to
read a map. And then just logistically, we didn't know if some of this stuff could be done.
So I think the first time we left on a trip, we had an alumni working for us, Daisy Yates.
We were planning this elementary school trip and we were going to take 62 first graders
and their parents camping. And I'll always remember the morning we left, like I ran into you in
the parking lot and you just sort of waved at me and you were like, "you got this?" and I said,
well, I certainly hope so. Because we really didn't know what that was going to look like.
So, we had obviously put a lot of thought and planning into it. We found a campground that
could actually accommodate 120 people, which is in and of itself a challenge. And then we
invited all these parents to see if they would be willing to come out and join their kid for a night
of camping, learn some skills. We focused on really simple things like how to use the compass.
We do a little bird watching with the first graders.
We do some nature art with them.
And then we also just wanted to create time for them to spend time with their parents. So, I think
we have parents leading stations. We have parents telling campfire stories. We all have a big
pancake breakfast in the morning because one of the points of those trips was also to continue
building that community and to get parents involved in what their child was doing so that they
could continue that at home because six days a year isn't enough, right? I think everybody is
going to need parents like you know, doing things with their kids. They're going to need to
continue that.
You know, do you still remember how the compass works? All of those kinds of things.
And so we're basically giving parents a jumping off point where they can enter in and keep
those things going on at home. We provide, you know, something to get them started at each
grade level, but it's helpful for them to participate as well.
00:11:55 Mr. Anderson
And how- one of the things that you and I have gone back and forth on is how integrated can we
make the outdoor program with the rest of the curriculum. And you were telling, I think, a good
story the other night when we were on that ruck which was sort of about the geologic
characteristics of the area and you said it would - almost couldn't have been better if you had
designed it. Maybe you talk a little bit about that because I do think that you could just repeat the
whole conversation you had with me, because I think that that's one of the things that when
parents hear about an outdoor program; I think that they worry that this is just a kind of diversion
instead of being something which is integral to the rest of the curriculum.
00:12:34 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, I think there's actually two places like that that I can just kind of quickly talk about that
have incredible connections to the Ridgeview curriculum. And I think Lori State Park, they have
this whole just perfect geological classroom is kind of what I would call it. We take that there are
graders, actually, Mr. Perkins is out there with them right now. And we walk from basically the
bottom of the Arthur's Rock Trail down to Horsetooth Reservoir. And on the way down there, it's
just a fun hike. So, we let them get all their energy out, we skip a bunch of rocks, we let them
kind of have unstructured play time.
And then on the way back up the hill, we tell them, hey, we're about to travel back in our time
travel machine. We're going to go through geologic history. And so we start there at the base and
we talk about the younger rock that's down there by the water. We walk up to the top and it's
incredible how this is laid out. Like I said, you couldn't have possibly done a better job if I had
had control over it. But there's the Lyon's Formation is there. And so you can see this sandstone
that's yellow, that's about 250 million years old.
You travel back. And then it's very easy for the graders to see the rocks change color. And now
all of our rocks are bright red. So, we can talk about, okay, this is a different kind of rock. It's a
different layer of rock. It's got different minerals in it. And so, we see this difference in
coloration. And then we walk a little bit further and now we're in an ancient stream bed and we
can see, now we have conglomerate rock. We have a whole bunch of rocks mixed together.
And then we cross over the road, and we can say, okay, now we've gone back about 800 million
years. And this rock is the oldest rock that we have and it's black and gray. And so, we can see
these very clear differences. And I think that is the sort of thing they're learning about rocks in
class and they've been learning about them from a textbook, but to be able to take them outside
and have them actually put their hands on the things that they've been learning about, just you
can kind of see them come alive and they're so excited to participate in it.
I think the other one that's really neat is that there's a settler’s cabin at Bobcat Ridge that is the-
some of the first settlers who came to Fort Collins. And our second graders spend the whole
couple of months leading up to that trip. They're learning about Westward expansion and early
settlers in the United States. So, we take them out there and they can actually play around in the
cabin, which is still set up for just like free play. It's got all of the original artifacts, and it was
just pretty neat. And they can kind of walk on the trail and see the original farm. And so I think
you can't beat those sort of interactive experiences outside of here.
00:15:19 Mr. Anderson
Nice. And Mr. Lautenschlager, I think kind of a question for you would be, and this pertains
the outdoor program, pertains to the curriculum is one of the things that I worry about
particularly when we do informational meetings and other things is that we talk about Ridgeview
as we would like for it to be rather than as it is. And so oftentimes when people come up to me
after an informational meeting or at a new parent meeting, and then they're very excited. And my
comment usually imparting with them is, you know, be sure to let me know if we're not living up
to what I just told you we're going to do.
So, my question for you, whether with regards to the academics or regards to the outdoor
program is Ridgeview living up to what the way that we talk about it?
00:16:04 Mr. Lautenschlager
Yeah, well, this was set up very well because Mrs. Carvalho just mentioned the only two trips
I've gone on, so that works really well! No, but I remember talking to family members and stuff
around the time that we decided that we were going to bring our kids to Ridgeview. And saying
like, you know, if they fulfill half of what they say, this is going to blow us out of the water. This
is going to be the best possible experience. And I would say that has been exceeded.
But specifically, in talking about, you know, the outdoor education aspect of it, you know,
in addition to just learning the history of the Westwood expansion, they're also reading
Little House on the Prairie. And I imagine, you know, my son sitting there and trying to talk with
him and trying to figure out what's going on in his head is he's discussing this book. And I'm
like, can he actually figure out what it would be like to be in a house that doesn't have AC or
doesn't have electricity or running water or all these sorts of things? It's like you can try to
picture it as best you can. But if you have no experience actually even seeing what that looks
like, you're not really going to get it. You know, you might be able to be like, okay, my house
had no lights it would be kind of like this. And maybe you think of like a power outage or
something. But you're still thinking of a big modern house.You're not thinking of this little tiny
cabin and thinking of an entire family fitting in there.
And so I think that, you know, with the outdoor education program, it is giving just a context that
can't be taught. It has to be experienced. You have to be there for it.And again, I mean, just so
just Tuesday when we went to on that third grade trip that, you know, I was just described, you
know, Mr. Perkins was like, okay, kids, sit on the rock, feel the rock, feel how easily you can
break it with your fingers and with your hands. Like knowing, like when they're studying those
rocks and they, they read about like, well, this rock is harder than this rock.
And my son's like, it's a rock.
It's hard. You know, I mean, he specifically was telling a younger brother after the trip. I didn't
know that I could just break a rock open with my hands like it was, you know, made out of foam
or something. So I think that again, yes, I mean, on the, the promise of, you know, the outdoor
education program and how it complements with their learning in the classroom, it's a much
deeper experience. And it's, it's very, I think, grounding for them.
00:18:15 Mr. Anderson
That's good. I think, yeah, that's absolutely true. When we see students correspond things in a
science class, for instance, the geology, they correspond with things that are in history, or a
literature segment, back to these things. I mean, my one experience with this was being in
Massachusetts and they had one of these, you know, rigged sail ships that was at the time
crossing the Atlantic or whatever. And obviously, it's a replica that's been rebuilt and everything
except until you're in that hold, that cargo hold or in the quarters of that ship and to see how tight
everything is and how big those timbers are and how much movement sway there is in that. And
when it's in the water, it's really hard to think about crossing the Atlantic or why that would have
been as daunting as it's depicted in history books. And I think that thing happens just like Mrs.
Carvalho was describing that settler’s cabin in the early days of the year. These are great first-
hand experiences for the students.
Are we valuing, and I realize this is supposed to be not just a connection to curriculum, but it's
also a connection, I think, to nature, which is very grounding, I think, for the students. How
important is it that these kids are in nature?
Mrs. Carvalho?
Is it important?
00:19:36 Mrs. Carvalho
Well, I think it's critically important. There are, I think, a number of reasons that we could point
to as to why they need to be out in nature. I think a couple of things that I always have in the
back of my mind are just the health benefit alone of being in nature. There was some interesting
research in Japan that was done for people that spend 30 minutes outside each day.
And they did this for adults, not even children. But for adults, it's doing things like lowering their
cortisol, It's reducing rates of depression in their population, It's lowering blood pressure.
I think it's doing things like we know in America kids who spend 30 minutes a day outside have
20% lower obesity rates. So you could cite all of these health reasons that we need to be outside.
And I think those are real, and we need to pay attention to them, especially when it's 30 minutes
a day. And you'd think about 30 minutes a day being outside. What's interesting to me is, right,
it's been determined that for prisoners to be meeting their constitutional rights, they need an hour
outside five days a week. And I think a lot of people aren't making sure that their children get
that much time outside, right?
And so, we've determined that it's obviously so critical that we think it's a constitutional right.
But we might not be making sure that our kids are getting it. So, I think just from that
perspective, it's hugely important that kids have time to be outside.
I also think there's just rising concern about teens not having experiences. They're not actually
living out in the real world, right? And you could point to a number of reasons why it could be
cell phones, it could be other forms of entertainment. It could be this rise of safety culture that
we've said for a long time that safety was our first priority and it turns out it probably actually
isn't our first priority, that we want people to actually go out and have experiences. And I think
the concern with teens who aren't out there having experiences is that the teenage brain is wired
to seek sort of this experience and to challenge itself and to see sort of what are you made of.
And if you don't have good places to go out into nature and to say, hey, can I climb this
mountain?
Can I bike down this on my mountain bike and knock over the handlebars?
You're not answering those fundamental questions about what is the stuff that you're made of.
And if you don't have those experiences, your brain's wired for that dopamine and you're going
to find it somewhere. And I think that has also come out in teenage experiences that teenagers
are using their phones for that dopamine or they're vaping or you could put any number of things
in there, right?
They're trying to replace that fundamental experience. And so I think nature is a great place for
them to get that because it's unstructured. Adults aren't making the rules in nature, which I think
is also another really important component that we could talk about. But it gives them sort of this
place to test themselves and to learn and both kids and teenagers absolutely need to do that.
00:22:48 Mr. Lautenschlager
If I can piggyback off that real quick, I think one of the things that makes nature very special and
unique is really the only place left in our society that isn't curated in some way, shape or form. I
mean, yeah, we talk about taking the kids out to just do a quick hike. There's nothing really
strenuous or crazy there, but then a snowstorm comes through or then they see a rattlesnake.
These are things that are truly random that can happen to them. One of the only places in the
world where they are still able to truly just experience something like that. If they're on their
phone, the worst thing that can happen is the battery is going to die and they can see that coming.
So more of they're playing a video game, they can kind of follow the story and be like, okay,
now is time for me to fight a boss or whatever it is. Everything about what we're doing is tailor
made and set up and designed by somebody else. But when you go out in the outdoors, you're
actually tested for the first time of like, how can I respond to something that doesn't make any
sense? It just happens and I just have to deal with that.
00:23:51 Mrs. Carvalho
For sure.
00:23:52 Mr. Anderson
Why do you think there's such a cultural resistance to it? I mean, it seems like we are about as
ideally situated as a group of people could be to go out and do that. But you and I talked about
particularly during the early years of the outdoor program. We would, I mean, I think we actually
recorded numbers for several years about how many kids we were taking out for an overnight or
a two or three night trip who had never spent a night outside and they lived in Colorado their
entire life.
So culturally it doesn't, it seems like we are attracted to living in places in which one would have
access to the outdoors, but not culturally inclined to take advantage of it necessarily.
00:24:33 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, I think there's a couple of reasons that you could point to for that. And one might be, I
think the outdoors is a place where apprenticeship culture is still alive and well in which if you
don't know how to trad climb or you don't know how to backcountry ski, you shouldn't read a
book to learn how to do it, right? You're going to need to find someone who can take you out
there and say, you know, that's not exactly quite where I'd place that piece of gear or, you know,
this snow looks suspicious to me.
I wouldn't go over there.
And they're trying to impart to you years and years and years of experience. So, I think there are
probably a lot of people just in Colorado that would love to be outside more that aren't able to
either make the time for or define sort of a mentor to be able to guide them through that process.
I think also too, safety culture is a real thing.Like we, I think growing up in the late 80s, early
90s, like we were told that there were kids on milk cartons. If you walked somewhere by
yourself, you were going to end up on a milk carton, right? I think we were stranger danger,
right? It was alive and well.
And I think preached to us. I think one of the stats I heard is that 56% of parents biked or walked
to school by themselves.
And now they self-report only 30% of them would allow their own child to do that. And so I
think there's this idea, like we experience something ourselves as children, but we still feel
unsafe about letting our children do it. And so I do think that factors into it as well.
And I think the last one, and probably maybe the most impactful for a lot of families is time. It's
really easy to let a week get away from you, you know? I think even just as a mom of two
children who loves to go outside, who loves to be outside with them. If we're not super
intentional in our family about setting time to go outside, it can just not happen.
00:26:25 Mr. Lautenschlager
Yeah, I would echo all that matches my experience. My wife being a teacher by the time the
week rules around, she is completely exhausted. If I haven't planned this like a month in advance
and bought some special stuff to put some money into it, she's like, this is not happening. So we
definitely have that.
But also, you know, it's, you make the point that people move to Colorado because of the access
to this all this wonderful, great stuff. Well, you know, I used to go backpacking after college in
Virginia. And if I made a mistake out there, it really didn't matter. You know, like Virginia is a
very forgiving outdoor wilderness. You are going to get terribly sunburnt.
You run out of water. Maybe not the best drinking water around, but there's water around
somewhere that you can get. And you can get your little life straw or whatever and everything is
fine.
You make a mistake out here.
You know, it's a, it's a bigger issue. And I can say like my wife and I when we moved out here,
we did make mistakes and come down from doing Gray Rock pretty much completely
dehydrated, having some problems. And so I think again, like the need for an apprentice is huge.
And I can tell you right now, I wouldn't know where to get one. And part of one of the reasons
why I make it a very huge emphasis and point to try to be on all of the outdoor education
programs for my sons is because I want to learn the things that I want to need to reinforce to
them because I don't trust that I know them. And so I think it's one, great that they have access to
this through their school. But it's also it's great an opportunity for the parents to learn some of
that stuff too so that they can incorporate into their family because there's a lot of things that, you
know, my kids are going to be able to do as long as we stay at Ridgeview that I wouldn't even
know where to begin.
00:28:03 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, sure. And I think that is one of the things that I've tried to make really clear to parents over
the years too is there are always trips that you could come on.
And even if it's your very first time going for a hike or camping, you know, I wouldn't
recommend jumping in on the ninth-grade ski trip if you've never done any of that before.
But there are trips where it's really easy to enter in and to start learning those skills
and start practicing those things. So, I do encourage parents to sort of use the outdoor program
that way as well as sort of that apprentice program where they can learn things to teach and do
with their own kids.
00:28:39 Mr. Anderson
So I have said more and more recently that school is a mindset rather than a place which has
proven to be unexpectedly controversial. I didn't say it to be controversial. I said it because I was
trying to explain how this complemented the rest of our curriculum. Do you end up with parents
volunteering on trips or end up talking to parents who think that this is little more than a
enrollment hook or photogenic diversion from what we should be doing? And if so, how do you
bring them back to maybe giving it a chance?
00:29:21 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, I think I haven't so much explicitly have that conversation but how it does come out
sometimes is we'll be on a trip and parents are going, wow, I mean, I thought we were just going
to come out here and, you know, like do a hike and take some pictures and then go home and
they're like, but we actually learned like real things today.
And I think, yeah, that we should have.
I think the idea that school, I mean, I hope school is a mindset and not a place, right?
Because then as adults, we're all out of luck, right? So, I think where people get that criticism or
what concern they're trying to express is that they don't want us to give up the intellectual in
favor of the experiential, right? And I think that is the biggest thing that I think I'm trying to
combat in the outdoor program is they go together, right? We're looking for sort of that
renaissance man that was physically capable, strong enough to go out and learn these things
outside, but was really interested in how things worked, right? And I think if you look at the
American mountain men, they were really interested in science. I mean, some of the research
they did on animals and waterways and how all of that ecology functioned we're still referring
back to them, even though we have better tools and, you know, more objective data. Some of the
research that they did, just while they were out there in the mountains for 120 days by
themselves, is still some of the best stuff that we have out there. So, I think the idea that we can
combine those things and I think also the learning that takes place outside of the classroom is
different because our motivation is different. It really, when you're on the outdoor program, you
have to learn the thing for the thing itself because we don't give you a grade, we don't go home
and say, hey, you've got to B- in outdoor education today. You're a little slow on the hike, you
know, could have paid better attention.
If you want to learn to rock climb, you've got to put in the time and effort, right? And it gives
you that immediate reward. If you get to the top, that's great. If you get higher than you have
ever gotten before, that's also great, right? So I think they learn to do the thing for the thing itself,
which is, I think one of the main things we'd want them to pick up about learning is that it's not
for this external motivation or somebody rewards you and told you they did a good job.
It's for doing the thing and enjoying the experience and enjoying having the knowledge.
00:31:55 Mr. Lautenschlager
I would say also, I think it's important to just keep the idea of schools and mindset there because
you don't want learning to end in the classroom at any age. And you know, so again, going on
the third-grade trip this past Tuesday, I had kids coming up to me and being like, well, how old is
this quartz? I'm like, well, that's not something to ask me to go talk to Mr. Perkins. But I love
that they're out there and they aren't just answering the questions that have been presented to
them. They are taking that and saying, oh, we are out here to learn. Let's just learn about
everything. You know, we're fostering an idea that they can, whenever they're presented with
anything new, they should want to learn about it. They should want to be like those mountain
men who came before them and say, I'm here.
I see something.
I don't understand it.
Let's learn.
Let's figure this out. And I think that that's huge. But, you know, and aside also from the
academic aspect of this, I think we also need to consider just kind of the character-building
aspect of being out there and in taking, again, the character pillars and all the things that we want
them to learn and putting it in that unique chaotic environment. You know, again, on the third-
grade trip, they had climbing some of the granite face of the wall there. And, you know, I think
that's probably the steepest thing my son's ever climbed because that's not something that we
necessarily do. But I remember when I was in fifth or sixth grade in Virginia, we went on this
like wilderness obstacle course type of thing and they had a zip line. I refused to do the zip line. I
would not do it. And I regret that to this day. And I just think it's great that like, well, that was
my first experience at a school doing something like that and being forced with it. And I turned
away. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm sad. I'm not afraid. But, you know, as a third grader, my son
had that opportunity in a much smaller, much more comfortable way to be like, oh, this is a hard
thing that could go badly. I'm going to give it a try. It went well. Like we are teaching those
types of things of taking on the challenge and, you know, seeing what's presented in force and
going forward exploring it and being curious about it. Seeing can I do this? Can I push myself in
this way? And so again, I don't know how you get that in a classroom.
00:34:05 Mr. Anderson
Do you- I have to imagine particularly with a wife who's a teacher, you have to get questions
from friends who do not have kids at Ridgeview. Like, what are they doing over there? This
looks like a, I have to, I mean, I sometimes I write about it or I think about what we're doing.I
think this is a very eccentric project. Does it look eccentric from the outside to the outsider or
how do you talk about it with them?
00:34:31 Mr. Lautenschlager
I'm sure it probably does look eccentric, but when I explain it to people, you see the lights go off
in their eyes. Like in an excited way, you know? I have the ability in my job to go around and
talk to a lot of people. I have other groups and communities that I'm a part of where they are. I'm
talking to men who have young kids and they'll be like, you know, I don't know what to do about
school. Should I send my kid to this private school? There's multiple charters There's the public
schools. Like, what are you guys doing? And when I tell them, like, yeah, it's really, really cool.
My son was reading Little House in the Prairie and learning about Westward Expansion and they
went to this place and they got to see what a prairie actually looks like and they got to experience
the smells and they got to feel this and that. And see how small the cabins were and see how hard
it would be to pull something up a well on a little pulley.
Like, they get it. You know, when you explain, like, I think part of maybe the Ridgeview
experience is you can explain a piece of it. You have to explain it in and how it all comes
together and how its totality is. Because like you said earlier, if we just look at the outdoor
education experience and you see all the beautiful Facebook posts and all these great things that
you guys do, you're like, okay, this is a photo op. You know, they just wanted to show some kids
on a rock face, on a cliff and good for them. But again, when you understand and see like, oh,
well, they're actually really focused on making the things that they read about make sense and
they're focused with, you know, some of the physical education aspect on making sure that you
have kids that are capable of just moving through these types of projects and being able to say,
oh, I want to do that. Well, I'm physically capable so I can.
It all comes together at all.
Like, even when I talk about it with people, I'm like, listing out all the things that you guys are
doing for my kids. I'm just like, how can they do all of this well? But again, it's not that you're
doing like, you're focusing on doing everything well, you're focusing on doing it all together.
And that's how it works and that's how it makes sense. And I mean, I have a lot of people that I
don't know that are necessarily going to send their kids here because we have one of them lives
up the canyon and-and that's a little far for him. But I talk to him about it in like every time he
sees me, he goes, what are your kids doing?
What's happening right now? So I mean, it's, it's probably hard to understand from the outside,
but if you can even get a glimpse inside from somebody, I think it makes sense.
00:36:53 Mr. Anderson
Good. Well, in the physical, you bring up the physical ability to do the thing and physical fitness
has definitely been something that's been at the front recently. How does that play into the
Outdoor Program? Do we see kids kind of coming into a realization that I really want to enjoy
this thing, but in order to actually enjoy it, I'm going to have to be, I'm going to have to step it up
physically.
00:37:21 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah, I think that absolutely has happened. And I think for me, in my own personal life and in
my conversations with kids, one of the things that I feel strongly is that you, you know, you don't
have to go to the gym every day. You don't have to, you know, you don't need to do that, but you
do need to be functionally fit. And you know if you're functionally fit, as long as your fitness is
never the thing that's stopping you from doing the thing that you want to do. And so I think that
is a place that we get with students where we're, and this is hard for everybody.
Like this is a really big challenge.
We are going to go up a 14er.
We're going to get to 12,500 feet.
None of us feel great. I mean, maybe one or two, you know, if we took Dr. Freese out there, I'm
sure she would be powering up.
But none of us feel great, right?
We're all working hard.
But for it to be a choice to keep going is what's really important. And some kids get there and
they realize they don't have the choice, right? Their body is making the choice for them. And
that's always hard, right? We don't want to be in that spot where we can't choose because we
haven't prepared our body for those types of things. And so I think that's a conversation that
we're having with students earlier on in the Outdoor Program because the challenges are smaller,
right? And I think your example of coming up against a zip line is a big challenge, right? If
you've never had an experience like that before and all of a sudden, we present you with this tiny
wire and we want you to jump off something, that's a big challenge.
But if you're in kindergarten and we say, hey, we're walking one mile around the Environmental
Learning Center. And one mile is a long way for your kindergarten legs. But you can do it and
you're strong and Miss Elliott is going to be here with you and we're going to stop halfway
through and we're going to tell you a fun story. We're going to have some lunch. All of a sudden,
it's approachable, right? And then they get to the end of that mile and what did they learn? They
learned that their body was strong and then they could do it and then it might have had hard parts
but it didn't kill them, right? And so I think over and over again and we repeat that and we say
you can push yourself, you can do something hard. It will have it's unpleasant moments but it'll
make your body stronger and stronger and stronger. They learn that in those smaller increments
so that hopefully we're not in that place where your body is making the decision for you.
00:39:41 Mr. Lautenschlager
A beautiful thing about that that I just kind of was thinking from the trips I've been on this year is
like, you know, Ridgeview has this this outside aura of being, you know, rigid and rigorous and
difficult and all that and I'm not saying it's not challenging. I mean, we wanted to be challenging
on some level, but I love that you know, again, on that third-grade trip, you guys get like an
hour to skip rocks. Like I saw kids struggling. I mean, that when we went on Tuesday, it was
uncharacteristically warm and everyone, everyone was overdressed for this trip. But I don't
believe that any single kid that went with that trip on me on Tuesday is not going to remember
the fun they had. You know, there are things that as a parent, you try to expose your kid to and
you can see it's not going well and it's like, okay, is this the time where we need them to push it
out and to challenge themselves and to show that they can fulfill a commitment or whatever. Or
you know, with my younger son who's five and is a kindergartener here this year, there's things
that he's doing outside of school where we're like, you know, if we keep pushing on this, he's just
going to hate everything about this and he's going to want to quit. We're experiencing that with
Jiu-Jitsu right now. And I see that in reflection with the outdoor program and how it's relevant is
the fact that I can't imagine a single trip based off the few that I've been on where you have kids
that are like, I want nothing to do with this. Like you know, the kindergarten trip we went on,
they got to climb trees, they got to look at squirrels and all this sort of stuff, everything was fun.
And yes, they're going to get more challenging and there's going to be more hard aspects to that.
But the fun is still there. The fun is, again, on a certain level built in, the free play time is there so
that they can find what it is that's going to make that a positive memorable experience for them.
00:41:26 Mrs. Carvalho
Sure. I think that's an important part of it too is that we have those parts of the day, which I think
some parents would point out is like, this is a place where learning wasn't happening. Like, we
were just down at the reservoir. We're skipping rocks, right? But for us, we're intentionally
building that time into the schedule because that's where we get our buy-in from the kids because
they can choose something that they want to learn about.
We're just skipping rocks. Yesterday, we had some boys that were just trying to dig up a giant
rock. They were moving all this sand and they just wanted to know, can we, if we can dig up this
rock, will we be able to move the rock, right? And I think like, they're learning about something
that they choose to learn about, which they don't get to do very often, right? They don't get to just
decide what it is that they're going to do. And then they also learn about how to get along with
their peers out there because if we're going to dig up a giant rock, then we each have to have a
job. And we have to get along and we have to work together. And so they're doing these things
that we can't, we could try to structure a lesson, but it would ring completely hollow.
00:42:28 Mr. Lautenschlager
Yeah, well, and you have 17 kids. So letting them all find the lesson that's going to ring true to
them is helpful. And you know, another thing with skipping rocks is like, oh, that's just a silly
thing. Well, half the kids, they throw their first rock and it just goes plunk and sinks right in. But
they all see, you know, Mr. Perkins or some of the dads out there skipping 12 times and they're
like, I'm not quitting. And that's a beautiful thing to see too.
00:42:53 Mr. Anderson
So, I mean, the thing that's interesting about the physical fitness piece is that, you know, we
didn't have to worry about the athletes. I think the athletes were taking care of, but again, even in
a, even in a larger school, it would be the minority of students who are training for a competitive
athletic thing. My hope has been that the outdoor program would catch the other 60% and bring
them along, right? attention would be given to them in a way that it wouldn't be otherwise.
However, I think parents see scholarship dollars and all sorts of other things attached to athletic
prowess and the training that is required to be competitive in that. But they see the outdoor
program, and they ask basically whether we're training recreationists or, you know, like I said,
we're a ski school that's just training kids on the hobbies that they will have as adults.
Is it more than that?
Are we doing more than simply training recreationists?
00:43:49 Mrs. Carvalho
I certainly hope we're doing more than that. I think, you know, for me, my experience was not at
all growing up a recreationist. I mean, my parents never took me. I think I went skiing a handful
of times as a kid and that was with my grandparents. They were the ones who really wanted me
to learn how to ski. For me, being outside was a livelihood. Like that's how, you know, I grew up
on a ranch. My dad built houses like being outside was how we lived. And I think you can have
an appreciation for the land that is Colorado if you've seen it and you know that it exists. So, I
think it's hard to say like, yes, I think it's important to be able to see... moose if you've never seen
a moose in your life. You don't know what you're missing out on, right? I think the same thing is
true. If you've never been to the, you know, pick a place, the Gore Range or something like that,
you have no idea what it is that you're missing out on. You don't know what that.
It's just a word on a paper to you. And so I think one of the things that I think we're teaching is
we're teaching stewardship and maybe not so much by intentionally teaching it so much as
showing kids what it is that they have access to. And I told them all, you have no idea how lucky
you are. I sometimes like to joke, you know, some people were born in Ohio.
That's where I was born.
So I can say that.
They were born there and they'll never leave, right? They won't ever see all the things that you've
seen. And so I think we're teaching stewardship just by taking kids out to places. I also think
we're teaching them skills that they can pass down to their children, right? And that might be,
how do you build a good campfire so that you don't look silly the first time you take your family
out camping and you can't get the logs to start on fire, right? It might also be like, how do you
safely use a tool and how do you put it away or how do you sharpen your knife? The other day
we had the ambassadors leaving for their trip and I were walking them to a vehicle check, right?
And they learn things like how do you know if your tires are properly inflated? How do you
know if you have enough windshield wiper fluid, which container under the hood holds the
windshield wiper fluid? I mean, these are important questions, right? That you'll have later on in
life. So, I think they're getting a variety of functional skills in addition to, of course, what I like
to call the candy for every trip, which is, yeah, it's fun to slide down a hill on two skinny sticks,
right?
That's a really great time. So hopefully we're getting a good mix of those fundamental skills in
there too.
00:46:24 Mr. Anderson
So, another, I think, big thing that parents maybe have some confusion about is, I mean, and
again, this maybe goes to the eccentric nature of the school and the program is they don't think
about a chaperoning a trip as a typical way of volunteering for their kids school. And they
definitely don't think about a chaperoning a trip that their kid isn't on as a way of contributing to
their community and their school. What do you tell them?
How do you entice them into this?
Do you just offer prizes?
How do you trick them into this?
00:46:59 Mrs. Carvalho
I make them bacon, Mr. Anderson.
00:47:01 Mr. Lautenschlager
I'm still waiting for my bacon, by the way.
00:47:04 Mr. Anderson
As am I.
00:47:05 Mrs. Carvalho
I'm sorry.
No, I mean, I think part of it is what I alluded to, which is that you can go on a trip and not be
experienced. So, I think removing sort of the barrier to entry of that you need to have a particular
skill. I think that's one thing that we've tried to do for parents. But I think the other part is that
most people, if you tell them that you need them, will come. And so, I think this year our
marksmanship trip was a perfect example of that, right? Marksmanship is definitely one of those
things where you need an apprentice. If you've never done it, it's incredibly intimidating. And so,
we had a couple of dads come out who have a ton of experience.
That's their wheelhouse.
It's what they're really good at.
It's what they do for a living. And I, some of them, and I think they came and they taught the
students and parents what it was like to engage in this activity that they loved. And that really for
me is like the height of the parent volunteer experience is that you're, there's a skill out there that
might become a lost skill if you don't teach it to somebody else.
And all we're doing is I didn't teach a single bit of that marksmanship, right?
I taught safety before we left and that was it.
And other than that, it was parent chaperones who were doing that. And they're passing on a skill
that they love that might be extinct if no one does that. And I think that is true for anything,
right? We have other parents who are phenomenal skiers who don't mind skiing a green run 27
times in the same weekend. And they're good teachers and they're patient. And so, we can invite
them out to teach that skill. So, I think the other thing is trying to know our community well
enough to know who has the skills, you know, to teach what and to come in and to really help
out with that.
I think the other part too is like, I talk specifically to dads for a second, is 3% of early education
teachers are male. So, that means that if your kid is going to have a good male role model in
elementary school, it's going to be a parent chaperone. It's probably not going to statistically be a
teacher at Ridgeview. And so, we especially need dads to come out when those kids are young,
because for a boy to have the experience of seeing somebody's dad skip a rock 70 times is really
cool, right?
He's like, oh man, that parent is so cool, right?
And we see the same thing on our upper school trips too, right? Is it's really important for us to
have, you know, both dads and moms out there because the flip side of it in high school is having
a mom who is willing to go out and camp in the snow for four days and isn't going to be afraid of
it and, you know, shows that sort of power over circumstance that we're trying to teach the kids.
That's equally as valuable for all of our girls to see.
And so I really just would encourage parents to come out and be that role model on those trips
because it really does make a huge difference. I think the kids spend more time talking to me
about things that they saw from certain parents than they are talking to me about Mr. Perkins or
talking to me about me.
They really have memorable experiences with their parent's chaperones.
00:50:30 Mr. Lautenschlager
And I would add, I mean, I think the role model aspect is really great and I think parents sharing
what they love is better than a teacher who happens to be able to teach it but doesn't have that
same passion. So I think that's really important. But the thing that I love as somebody whose
chaperoned as many trips as I've been able to is, is the community.
Like I love talking to other parents and, you know, finding out what their road to a review was
and what their experience is and all of those sorts of things. So, I guess another aspect too with,
you know, we've seen from multiple sources the kind of crisis of a lack of community in our
world and we've specifically saw that in COVID times. And on the flip side, you know, we our
family comes to Ridgeview and there's so many opportunities to be part of this community and
to plug into this community if you're willing to attempt.
And I think that it's good for the kids to see that. Like yes, as a parent, it's good for me to be able
to come to my kid's school and be like, "Okay, I know that person. I've talked to this person
about this, whatever." That's great for me. But I want my kid to see that. I want my kid to see
like, "Oh, I don't have to worry about stranger danger." You know, like we can kind of un-
program them from that kind of mindset and seeing like, "Okay, I go to this outdoor trip and I
learn how to skip rocks from this random dad that I've never met before or I learn how to shoot
from this person or, you know, all of these different things." And they realize like, "Oh, it's
important to have different people in different community because mom and dad are great." And
they, you know, are the most important adults in my life right now. But there are other adults
who can contribute and can help with that and I can trust them in that pursuit.
You know, that's one of the things where I mentioned earlier about the trail life thing. I love that
I can take my kid there and be like, "These are all great dads that you can learn from because
they know things that I do not.
And I'm going to be hands-off.
I'm going to be there.
I'm going to watch.
I'm going to make sure everything's good. But I can allow those interactions and allow those
relationships to build where my son can be around other men and they can explore manhood in
that way because they aren't just looking to me to be the ideal man. They're looking to all of
these men who can contribute to what that is. And the more parent volunteers we have, the more
that, you know, the young boys, the young girls can get that from the people that they see.
00:52:50 Mrs. Carvalho
Yeah. And I think you used an interesting phrase there where you said, "I'm hands off." Right?
And I think I had a funny conversation with one of the moms on the third-grade trip this week
and she said, "Hey, if I need to stop chaperoning my kid's trips, will you tell me?" And I just
looked at her and I said, "100 percent." Right? Because there is also a value in not having your
parent really close by from time to time. And so, I think by getting parents to chaperone trips that
their students aren't on, they open up that opportunity for other people's children, right? To have
an experience with an adult who is not their parent, which gives them so much experience for
how the real world works because we all go out, right?
And we learn, "Oh, I'm just a person, right? I have to be responsible for my own character and
my own first impression. I don't already have all of this credibility that I built up with my parent.
Really just my actions in this moment determine what this person thinks of me." And then also, I
have to solve my own problems, right?
And I think that starts even in second grade. It's really nice when your parent isn't there and you
have to carry your backpack for a mile and a half and your backpack's pretty heavy, right? If
your mom's there, you might say, "Mom, can you carry this?" But if your mom's not there, you
just tough it out, right? And that's what we learn about students is that they will definitely rise to
the challenge if there isn't someone there to rescue them. And so I think we need a variety of
parent chaperones to be able to provide that experience for students so that everybody's kid gets
a chance, right? To have that experience.
00:54:32 Mr. Lautenschlager
Well, and I'll say too, you know, when I chaperone trips, I stay away from my son. You know,
it's like when we had lunch on Tuesday and he ran down to the beach at the reservoir, I'm like,
"I'm staying far away and I will talk to other kids and I will do that because I want him to have
that independence and to feel that comfort on his own around the other adults and around the
other kids. I don't want him to feel like I'm intruding on his space. So, if somebody is listening to
this, it's like, "Oh, yeah, that sounds really good. I'm just going to let my kid go off with all these
other people to learn from them." It's like, "Well, no, you can still be there and still give them
that opportunity." If you think your kid is going to be one of the ones who wants their backpack
held, well, send them to the front of the line and you stay in the back.
00:55:10 Mrs. Carvalho
Right, right.
Yep, that's a great point.
00:55:13 Mr. Anderson
Well, in wrapping this up, I think I would thank you, Mr. Lautenschlager, and other parents like
you for, I think, being a in-person part of a community. I think that's becoming increasingly rare
to actually be in this building, be at book groups, be a part of the community, go on trips, and
genuinely be a part of and understand the kind of education you are giving your child. And it's a,
I think, huge honor and a privilege to be a part of people's lives in that way, because you are
working with the aspect that is absolutely most important to them, which is their child, which is a
huge trust, obviously, and hopefully we live up to it. And to Mrs. Carvalho, thank you for taking
a fledgling program that we didn't know what was exactly going to become of it when we started
it. And obviously you've done a tremendous job, and Mr. Perkins has put in his share as well.
I know he tries to take more than his share and push you out too early.
We won't let him do that.
But you both are doing a tremendous job with that program.
So thank you.
And thank you for listening to "Hoplite Radio." If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, I Heart Radio, or you're prefer listening app. For more information
about Ridgeview Classical Schools. Please visit our website at Ridgeviewclassical.org.
00:56:42 [OUTRO MUSIC]
