As the Spring Term winds to a close, Proctor Academy's Mountain Classroom program winds its way east through Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. At this point in the journey, students are running the majority of daily operations for the group. In the journal entries below, Gunnar '22 and Romy '23 reflect on how their group has evolved during their seven weeks together.  During the final two and a half weeks of the program, the group will continue their journey east immersing themselves in place-based learning along the way. 

To break things up a bit, this is a group blog, and being visual artists, we'll let the images, and drawing, for the most part, speak for themselves. The vast majority of photos are taken by Thomas.

Proctor en Segovia students travel south today to begin their second week-long excursion of their term abroad. They traversed the meseta of Castilla La Mancha and the Sierra Morena mountain range before arriving in Córdoba in the region of Andalucía. There they will study Andalucian culture and history firsthand.

Before leaving Segovia, instead of a traditional written reflection, students recorded this seven-minute video reflection on student life outside of the classroom in Segovia and living with a Spanish host family. They also take us on a quick tour of the Plaza Mayor and the Proctor en Segovia academic center.

Despite living a minimally structured lifestyle, my days have been packed with new experiences. Between resolving tensions in my social world and struggling to paint the ripples of the Mediterranean Sea, there are always challenges to be overcome.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. The plane skipped up, sideways, down and seemed to popcorn around in the air. I gripped my armrest on the 50 seater with people silently reciting small prayers in their heads. Or that is what I imagined since that was what I was doing. I slowly opened my eyes to see snow capped mountains. Big ones. Excitement replaced fear, my eyes glued to the window. The snowy mountain tops blended into striated red rock mesas as we landed in Grand Junction after a stop over in Denver. 

While Segovia is the home base for Proctor’s linguistic and cultural program in Spain, students travel on week-long excursions to at least two of Spain’s distinct regions. On the road, classroom learning about history, art history, and culture is made visible. Enjoy these student reflections their recent excursion to País Vasco (The Basque Country).

The week started off with a Monday of recovery from Paris. Because Sunday was Easter, we had class at the house instead of catching the bus into town.

Last week, Proctor en Monteverde director Brooks Bicknell ‘77 visited the six sophomores currently studying abroad, meeting the group on the trail as they emerged from their three day stay at the San Gerardo Field Station deep within the Cloud Forest, guided by renowned naturalist and writer Mark Wainwright.