Thomas Dean and Robert Burkhardt

00:02 My name is Robert Burkhardt. I am 71 years old today is December 11th 2001 to 2011 and I'm speaking at Eagle Rock School and professional development center in Estes Park, Colorado, and I'm having a conversation with you Tom Dean at because I was lucky enough to work with you on the creation and the early evolution of Eagle Rock School.

00:36 Hi, my name's Tom Dean and I'm 67 and it's actually December 10th 2011.

00:45 Works for me and this is where at Eagle Rock School in Estes Park, Colorado, and I'm fortunate enough to be here with Robert Burkhardt who is head of school at Eagle Rock and he's a colleague of mine.

01:02 So Robert here. We are in front of a microphone telling their story. It's an amazing journey, isn't it?

01:08 20 years spent 20 years, if a combination of many experiences in a my journey started off at the high school teacher and I love working with kids. But while I was there, I began to having shifting interest in education began to be intrigued by different kinds of approaches to curriculum. So I moved on to UCLA and began a deeper study got exposed to some Mastery learning Concepts and career development and experiential education and then Honda came along and provided me with an opportunity to apply these things that I studied at UCLA the company had a great culture and a lot of freedom to be Innovative and that's all shown in.

01:56 Yeah my opportunity to get involved with helping to develop Eagle Rock School and professional development center, which put me back with kids. So each of these changes in my career.

02:08 Was really serendipitous circumstance, you know as I look back now, I can see the path that I took but when I was younger and I was looking forward there was no way that I could see that it would end up with this kind of a journey. So one of the things that I like this dress with kids when I work with him is that your career path is really Guided by a compass and not a road map. And what you need to do is prepare for opportunities and be ready to go and that's what happened with me. I continued to be a lifelong learner. I prepared and when these opportunities came around I was ready to jump on it and I understand that your career kind of took the same kind of path. Is that right? There are a lot of parallels my teaching career began right after I graduated from college I join the Peace Corps and I was assigned to teach in a small village in Northern Air on up on the Caspian Sea and ended.

03:08 Wisdom, the Ministry of Education assigned me as my beginning text to work with 60 Village kids at a time Gulliver's Travels. So can you say brobdingnagian? Let's all say Wenham. Let's say Lilliput. So I threw the text out the window because I realized that was inappropriate for them and I began to have to design my own curriculum, and I discovered it by designing my own curriculum and looking at the knees and interest of young people that was a whole lot more satisfied to me. It was much more effective in getting them to see charge to take a shower surround learning and that led to coming back and teaching in my hometown in Central Valley New York and come down to teach at Lawrenceville for a couple years and all these things when I look back on them going to graduate school to Teachers College creating a school in San Francisco helping to establish the other

04:08 Conservation Corps and with John oubre running the education program at that and designing it I had been on a program called operation Crossroads Africa and Jim Robinson who shapes that program his autobiography was called Road without turning and when you look ahead it seems to be Serpentine and it's going to wind everyone you don't know but when you look back at videos of Road without turning and I like that race of your serendipitous circumstance because everything that I had taught myself to do working in the circus being a newspaper reporter working in the San Francisco Conservation Corps, all that culminated when you telephoned me in June of 1990 and said hey,

04:54 My name is Tom Dean. But I'm from Hondo. It's about the thing about a school in Chicago. And if you will recall I said you know time. I'm in a meeting right now. Can you call back an hour? And I hung up the phone? Fortunately you called back. I sure did thankfully.

05:10 So, you know one of the reasons that I'm here is to give a description of how igorot came to be and it all started when I was sitting at my desk and may of 89 and my boss walked in and said, hey Tom, you got to you got a new job. I'm going to put you together with this senior Honda person and you're going to work on a special project and study and come up with some conclusions on how Honda can become better good corporate citizen.

05:43 So what we started off doing was to begin to look at what it takes to be a good corporate citizen. How do we know when we see one and what is a good corporate citizen for a japanese-owned company? What's appropriate this whole idea of good corporate citizenship for a Japanese cont company is a New Concept in Japan. They didn't even think about dealing with societal need. So we looked at what's expected of a good corporate citizen. What are current situation is and what kinds of opportunities existed and overall, what we decided to do was and what we needed to do was create a good feeling about Honda because Honda always wants to make the world a better place through its people its products and its philanthropy and they want to stand out exceed people's expectation and do things that are worthy of special notice. So we came up with some objective.

06:43 And our objectives were to actually do something do something that actually required to Sweat Equity and our direct involvement and not just giving money to some other organization to do it for us to make a meaningful change make a difference do something extraordinary and in the spirit of Honda to be Innovative and creative and do something that didn't exist.

07:07 Something that's not business-related much more altruistic and unexpected of Corporations is something that required a long-term commitment to our Focus we decided after looking at researching of a little bit further with focus on education, so

07:25 In order to focus on education that we then began a process of doing on-the-spot research to go out and see the actual situation. So we traveled the country for

07:37 Six or seven months and visited schools and programs all around the country began to define the curriculum and the Sea different program elements that we thought were appropriate for the student population that we were interested in serving and this also helped us to identify relationships and helpers and was actually through this Robert that we were able to meet people that were able to refer you to ask as a candidate for head of school.

08:06 How is Valrico tandberg who was running the Thompson Island Outward Bound Center the time and Rick and I had been together as graduate students in a doctoral program at Columbia Teachers College. Yeah, that was a great find any way our conclusion wants to establish a professional development School the school for young people kids who have not been successful in conventional School settings, boo hoo with the new starred in a new environment could become successful productive members of society. And in addition to that a school for educators a place where other Educators could come to research and develop program elements in areas. They believed that we could be helpful in so it's really

08:52 The school for the students actually exist as a model for other teachers to come and study as a part of our professional development School.

09:04 I've always referred to the professional development center as the tail that Wags the dog that there is a symbiotic relationship between the two but it's really clear that our reach has to exceed our grasp and it's the exporting of ideas policies practices around the country that it is the ultimate long-term impact.

09:29 So the program elements that we saw as we traveled around the country is that we wanted to develop a school that was more prep for life not prep for Princeton Harvard or Yale or college prep for an overall preparation for life. So is all-encompassing and holistic approach and the mechanics of our curriculum word that it would be meaningful and challenging curriculum that it would become it would be experiential meaning not just eyes and ears and paper and pencil but it would involve the whole person a Mastery learning approach meaning that it's not time reference that everybody can be successful when they're given enough time. So it's competency-based and a multidisciplinary approach where we take the different program elements and combine them into a

10:24 A multidisciplinary approach in I like the way that the Eagle Rock does that by themes you do you establish a steam at the beginning of each each quarter each trimester.

10:38 8 + 5 equals 10. There are eight curricular seems that way. That's our Mantra 8 plus 5 equals 10. It's a it's a sticky message in a sense sensitive there ATMs the creek in a fibroid expectations and we take the language of those and Michelle together to get the ten commitments. But yeah, I used I have a curricular theme every trimester is inserting an overarching metaphor to try to help staff and students. Think about whatever it might be. For example, this trimester is 8 ideas in this the 8 themes but ideas imagination determination effort achievement and the serenity that comes from those and sweet words every Wednesday the committee meeting we talk about those things.

11:27 One of the things that we did early on was build a play structure for the city of Estes Park and Service Learning and Community Services really important part of the school and you know your building by building a play structure you're able to study math the angles in the dimensions, you're able to look at it from a sociological point of view on a Gathering Place for young people to meet the moon and the sun is all kinds of multidisciplinary things that can be learned from something as simple as a play structure Garth Lewis in the end in the first group of students that the folks who showed up in September 93 after they returned from their wellness program. They spent it was August take two to three weeks or so. Well. November December January, I think we finished it February or early March of 94, but I was down

12:27 At 8 that we have the Scottish Irish Festival Estes Park. I was down there this past September and kids were playing on that play structure. It is it's a wonderful Condition. It's being used a lot and it was a springboard to them putting in several other playground areas in that whole part of of the Stanley Park so that there's a lot of people using that and what I like about it is there's no plaque that says this was done by Eagle Rock School is just there and is for people to use and they can ask if they want to know but it said it was if it was our first major service learning project and Eagle Rock students average a little over $500 a year of service and some of that happens on site here, but it happens in the Estes Valley down a Denver up in South Dakota all over the place where they program element is one of the most effective things we do and you've been has been recognized.

13:27 Haven't they as a service learning? We were the corporation for national service declared as a national leader School in national service. We've received the governor's Award of the whole bunch of recognition. That is come from the work that the young people have done and it while the recognition is nice to have been more important part of that I think is that they have turned their own lives around and develop a service ethic in themselves, which they carry on back to their families to the communities at cetera.

13:59 Ian another program element is the whole Wilderness Program students students come to the school. They they stay here and residence for a month and they learn a little bit about the Nate + 5 V equals 10 and then they go off on a Wilderness experience for nearly a month and they build on their self esteem. They they understand that they can do things that they could never do before they help each other. So that's also a very important key part of our program isn't it videos? And it's actually we now have them here for 8 days before we send them off and we blamed in the program. So I least I think was 21 days when we first started in 93 + 25 days now and the simplistic version of it is is that it's an opportunity to Bond as a group which is which is part of building Community, but leave the past behind and then the curriculum that we use in the wilderness and all the processes.

14:59 Isn't the language so many things that's a springboard into what's going to happen when they return here and then they look at it when it when they finish that 5-mile run and they run down into the school. They start to look at the other students with new eyes because

15:15 Intellectually, I knew you had been out on a Wilderness trip, but but I experientially I didn't know that but now I know that in there so there's is Kindred relationship that we have as a result of the willingness and they were people when they return aren't they a boy?

15:31 So another thing is about Eagle Rock that we wanted to see was it living and learning would not be separated. It wouldn't be a classroom experience and then they leave and they go back to their homes or whatever, but they actually live on campus and part of the House program is the house program is equally important to anything that they would learn in the learning village with living and learning is not separated there. There is no way that you can do that and the wonderful thing about having a community that is 24/7. Is that whether it's sidewalk counseling there's a young person in need or who should get encouragement or needs to be if she has an issue that you need to deal with but the in the in the wings in the house in advisory, there's so many times not from 8 to 4, but the rest of the day as well that

16:32 I have seen wonderful opportunities for kids to grow to discover who they are too weak to fight through conflict because there are differences of opinion about something but to find ways to work with each other to constantly rebuild and rebuild community. It's pretty cool and the school is an amazing cross-cultural cross-cultural in every way you remember the first group of students. We had a cowboy and a while they even in the very first group we had from all over the country and very very different kinds of young people. And now that we're in our 19th year of operations. There are we had 20 some 2526 States represented our graduates come from all over the place. So New York Mets, San Francisco LA meets Boston butt real Florida me.

17:32 Oregon and it's wonderful to take young people who come from whatever their background is and impel them into a situation where now they have to get along with someone whose culture accused may be different whose style of dress may be different whose experiences certainly are different and begin to discover all the commonalities they have and be healed build bridges of friendship. It's it's been pretty one of the best things about that. I like it. There's a young lady named Aisha who was a Muslim girl from Harlem her best friend in the world is Cynthia Alonzo who's in Latina who is a gang girl from Compton California. Now you there's so many differences there and yet they were on the wheel. They were on the same Wilderness trip together and they bonded there and they have their they're still incredibly close friends and they work together.

18:31 A whole bunch of things and the beat their friends for life now and we help set that up, which is wonderful it is

18:38 So what makes Eagle Rock successful in terms of the climate and culture, you know, it is a community of Learners and every everybody is a learner here students staff faculty. You work in the kitchen to the kitchen help helps the students learn different kinds of skills that have to do with the nutrition and preparation of food. You're involved in the performances playing the trumpet in your Hamlet, you know, your performance tonight everybody is so there is sort of an egalitarian line all the way across to everybody that's here in our community as community of Learners. Well, there is a slide exceptions at because I I declare to everyone that I'm the number one Lerner it either Rock School at the same time. Everyone else has permission to be the number one Learners well, but I want it clear that this is a learner-centered school. It's not adults and it is

19:38 Students at its learner centered and it's all about all of us learning as much as we can. So I try to model that in in my own daily practice with that. We don't even call her teachers teachers. We call him instructional specialist so they can manage learning environment. So and another thing that makes it so successful is that the students and faculty and everybody have shared values and norms and belief in the goodness of people in the students come into the school. And once they go through the Wilderness Program and come back as fully Eagle Rock students. They really do protect those values in norms for appropriate behavior. Don't they? Well in the daily Gathering it is very familiar to hear a a student who has now been at the school for a while who is really beginning to internalize the values address Community Behavior.

20:35 You know, we don't have any hired help here. Why can't we all clean up after ourselves at mealtimes? We need to turn the lights on we need to take shorter showers. And and when the veteran students take on that role responsibilities of being the protectors and the advocator to the values that just opens up possibilities for new students so that you know that sprays When in Rome it's not prescriptive. It's actually descriptive we tend to go to normative behavior in any community and so a new student coming in who sees veteran students being the advocates for those eight themes as five expectations in the ten commitments. Oh I can do that too. And they begin to absorb that practice our language and then I begin to practice at its very hip it was students are really involved in the selection of Faculty. The weather a student should be sent home for a while whether the student should be welcome.

21:35 Back and they're all part of that decision for us. Well, that's that goes right to one of the 18th Democratic governance that students if we're going to have a school where students can really engage in activities that prepare them to be productive citizens. They need to help make decisions or consequence. So whether it's sitting in on staff meetings as they do whether it's hiring new staff a student may leave and wants to come back on her second chance program students are involved in that they Orient a new students. They actually help and design and teach classes as well. So there's a we want that to happen because then they take that ownership of Eagle Rock and carry it in the time that they're here or being part of a professional development conference. A Ryan Wade is one of my favorites on that a Ryan when she first got here was was her exclude experience priority The Rock had not been very effective.

22:35 And his head should have turned her inward on herself. And when she gave up when she stood up to make her first pres Wilderness presentation after 25 minutes. She actually collapsed on the floor and curled up in the fetal position Latonya my dad to help burn and we said it's going to be okay. Well fast forward two years. She was representing the school in front of 3,000 people national conferences because of the support and encouragement. She got here in the practice and speaking and then it became easy and she's Mary's got some kids now. She's a wonderful woman and we love her.

23:13 Song it's really not what we say about the school. It's really it's more what other people say about the school. It's part of being a professional development school is that you have an automatic assessment that goes on every time we have visitors because they're choosing what it is that they want to study and take back and what some of the things that other people say about us. It's a particular interest is how to create a school how to create a climate of respect among the first student populations.

23:49 Well, the Coalition of essential schools did a study on us into the film about us about how you how you create a culture of respect which is not in living and respectful Harmony is one of the ten commitments. It's a fundamental value of the school and we are human beings and we make mistakes but we constantly kind of reline ourselves with how do we live in respectful harmony with other people and it goes on and on and on and they have we had we will I get feedback regularly from visitors from parents from former students from people who are here for a workshop through a group of art teachers were here a group of science teachers were here who are constantly encouraged and lightened and to some extent of maze that young people can carry themselves in a certain way that is reflective of these guys. It's is very nice.

24:47 And another one is how to build community in a sense of belonging which really is what you were already talking about some extent being a community of Learners everybody. We've talked about that a bad thing. The different learning styles is differentiated learning. Well in any way classes work here is that students sign up for the classes that they want to take in the order now that there's a distribution they're going to have to take some science and some mathematics and English and language etcetera. But the order in which they sign up for classes is up to them so that when I have a poetry class or a class in Shakespeare Greek tragedy, whatever it might be there will be some students who are close to graduation who learn in there. They're very good at reading and analyzing meeting and there's other folks who are there somewhat Cherry of writing and sharing the writing with other people in my poetry class last summer. I just send you started.

25:47 It was an outdoor poetry class with Road everyday and she said Robert I don't like the nature. I suggest he's going to be okay. I don't like to read in front of people. I just knew you were going to read our poetry to each other.

26:01 And there are other people in that class were wonderful and very comfortable that they had already been writing poetry by the end of the class. Jessenia had no problem reading aloud. She's now a campus leader and I am just one person who helped her understand that it's just completely capable of doing that. It's okay. There's not a problem and she can move on and and work well in that so in every class the other tends to be a lot of different with which is why we frequently have interdisciplinary classes so that a combination of music and science or math and physics or chemistry and literature whatever it might be too so that all the different strains his students have can be used and I can lean on you for something and you can lean on me for something cuz you might be better in the chemistry side of it. I might be better in the literature side of it, but we both need each other and Huckleberry Finn.

27:01 Performance tell us a little bit about how you integrated that throughout the whole crew. We had everyone in the school read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and then a different classes to study different issues of the time. They were people who build a raft they were people who study the issues around slavery Etc and we are all the different classes came together to present to each other so that when we did then when we put on Big River that wonderful show it was in front of an audience that new a whole lot. They were able to share things together and it just made a big difference and if it is still as it echoes very much in my mind.

27:45 And then our curriculum really isn't time reference tall is it it's people progressed pretty much at their own rate when they're when they're done accomplishing the standards that they need to accomplish to graduate. They graduate an advantage of having three graduation possibilities a year is that it's not high stakes graduation Tom. You didn't finish a couple of papers. You maybe need to do a little bit more research work on them for months from now graduation is possible and if it's rather than oh you're going to have to wait a whole year. It makes a big difference and so students do move at their own pace. And that's fine. As long as they get to the same level of proficiency and in the capacity to speak in Spanish or play the trombone, whatever it happens to be it works very well and it takes away a lot of the stress and lot of anxiety and isn't that something that's of interest to other people coming to study what are Cricket looks like in terms of how that relates to state standards.

28:45 Do we could we constantly reference the national and the state standards in what we do and then when visitors come we talked with them about their ease the pain of rearranging time for them because many schools they're obliged to move in 42 minute blocks or whatever. It might be which is a convenience to ministrative leave but it doesn't necessarily address with the needs of Learners are and so we've had folks come here and start to think about how can we restructure time to take advantage of the needs that Susie or Billy or Juan or just any a need in order to practice their learning and really get something out of a class or an a learning situation in substances. It's non-graded to isn't it? There's no a species. There's no sophomores juniors seniors. The people are known by their ER number ER.

29:45 When was the first group of students in September 93 and where an ER 55 now and that's that's how you're known is by Yuri the cohort with which you entered Eagle Rock school, but it is not about being a sophomore junior senior or getting a 90 or a 60 or an A or a B. Plus it's it's about you taking charge of your learning you taking charge of your life and working with other people to develop at Mastery and the presentations of learning really is something that people enjoy seeing and taking back with them and utilizing in their own school. It's been

30:25 Well, there is a presentation to learning every student three times a year delivers a major presentation learning where they have to organize what they've learned how they've grown as a person but how they've grown as a Learner in the past trimester and then we have a four venues going simultaneously actually those start this coming Monday and it's a wonderful opportunity since we videotape them in and give them the garage is kind of like 28 up. It's a great for them to be able to watch themselves grow through time. There was a school in Baltimore which came here to visit us and they took away presentations of learning the next year. I think they probably borrowed something from other schools as well. But we were helpful in this they were rated the best middle school in Baltimore and they attributed a lot of that to taking our presentations of learning adapting them to their specific situation.

31:25 And using that as a way to engage young people more in learning. So there are a number of examples like that. The presentations are terrific and kids grow from them and portfolio assessment. How does that work? When somebody wants to go to college after they complete the Eagle Rock and they don't have a transcript grades. Well, that's the best in the first invest or was that was Smurf Elizabeth Hannigan, who's whose hair change color every week? I remember and Elizabeth wanted to go to Wellesley. And so she put together on a DVD portfolio, which she essentially sent to Wells me said, you know, you need to look at this. Here's the play that I wrote and starred in hears me doing this year's me in class doing that and she had put together this nothing on paper. It was all digital and visual.

32:25 She graduated from Wellesley. She went on to the sorbonne and I was very nice and we believe we've had other students do that as well. Just about a month ago a young lady was here who wants to go to a place that you and I visit Sterling College all I remember and she had put together this incredible portfolio and I I couldn't believe it. I called up Sterling and said I know high school principals don't normally do this, but you need to understand you've got a portfolio, and this is real this young lady that she made the paper. She wrote All The Poetry she took the photography she bound it. If it's just it was an amazing thing that she did and she's waiting to hear but I'm

33:12 Highly optimistic that Sterling will take advantage of her talents.

33:20 Talk therapy, lots of special moments that there are a whole bunch of special moments. But let me just tell you one other one which for me is an incap of encapsulating story about Eagle Rock and then I want to thank you for what you've done two to three years ago. I got a phone call. You will remember perhaps a young man in fit me into Jacob I do and feta mean and you will also probably remember that he followed Joelle around because he was in love with her and both Joelle graduated and said mean begin to drift in from the Mexico in Spanish if I got to know them very well.

33:58 But from that mean finally left Eagle Rock without graduating back in the mid-90s to three years ago. I get a phone call from in and Robert that mean, how are you with it? What was meant in 12 years? I've never heard from you is Robert. Can I ask you a question?

34:22 What the hell you talkin about? Can come visit either Rock School your this is your home your part of us. Thank you so much because you know what? My wife said to me yesterday I said was that she said shut up about that damn School you hate me there now fed mean statistically is a Dropout of failure. He didn't graduate from Eagle Rock school, but he has he carried the values he and absorbed them internalized them. He's now running the catering services at the DoubleTree in Albuquerque. He's married with two kids very happy and he brought his wife up here and she said, oh I see what you mean. There's a wonderful story and it kind of for me encapsulate the long-term effect that this culture this community can have on young people and helping them see that. There's hope that there's possibility in line, right and I can't thank you enough for making that second phone call after I hung up on you back in 1990 because this is been just an absolutely amazing.

35:22 Experience for me. I've got everything to go back to that Serendipity circumstance everything that I had the opportunity to do in my life before hand was a skill when I was a plumber when I was a circus juggler when I was a public high school teacher when I was a state bureaucrat all these things.

35:44 I wish I'd done more cuz I could have been an even more effective head of school, but it really work well, so thanks a lot. It's been it's been a hell of a ride. You're welcome. Thank you.

35:57 I want to ask you about your circus experience. We have four minutes.

36:07 You're experiencing so I could gain the right to a story. I was in a for 10 years. I was a member of the pickle Family Circus in San Francisco and the pickle Family Circus. We raise money for Grassroots to me organization survey European one ring style circus and we went to London at 82 to perform at the roundhouse with a Rolling Stones perform some like them and we had a new part of an act where it was called to hide feed and I was juggling clubs across to you and someone standing on your shoulder as I was coming up to the couldn't get it and couldn't get it couldn't get it and butt opening night was coming the critics were coming and that, you know, the London times and all that. So I went to the Tate Gallery. I've been there years before I went to see the Turners cuz I thought the other such amazing paintings. I love his thing and I was walking around in the bookstore and I came across this book on art.

37:07 Two three interviews in this life. You can't find many interviews with Picasso, but I am reading this one and it at one point in it. He says when I paint my object is to show what I found not what I'm looking for and that struck me and I said, you know, what show them what you found not what you're looking for. So I went back and I screw my courage to the sticking-place and opening night. I made the two high feed the critics were happy. I dropped clubs the next three nights, but the reviews were already in but it was a wonderful wonderful opportunity to every weekend go off to Bend Oregon or Santa Rosa, California or Portland OR Seattle to Los Angeles or Santa Cruz and and provide entertainment for young people. Yeah, and you do your playfulness really shows up in the way you managed to school too and Andy

38:06 Relate to the students It's a Wonderful plus but when I go back to my 50th reunions at Princeton next you and I will lead our class. I'll be juggling Club at orange and black clubs. I'll do that the whole way I'll do it on a unicycle Robin did not. Thank you very much.

38:25 Anyway, that's that's something about the pickle Family Circus.

38:30 I've heard that you're retiring. I will I've been at this job since I started in April of 1991 and in August at the end of August 2012. I will retire and get someone else an opportunity to carry. My my purpose was to think about the first 50 years and do the foundation work for the first 20 and I'd like to think that I like in the preface to dr. Johnson's dictionary. He says that when people will notice this the first time English language when people notice that something is missing let them likewise note that something's been delivered. So there's a lot more that I could have been smarter and better I could have done more but I like to think that some of the things that we've been able to do together have been helpful to the other has ever be done.

39:24 If area with this place will never be finished. That is correct.