Show #115 There Isn’t a Box: Redefining Success Through Supportive Immersion

Transcript

[12:11] Lori Boll (she/her): Well, hi, Heather, and welcome to the podcast.

[12:14] Heather Tracy: Hi, Lori. Thank you for having me.

[12:16] Lori: Well, I’m really excited to talk with you today. I first learned about you just recently, you and your school and what you all do there, and I wanted to be sure to share that with our listeners. So for our listeners who are most likely new to New Summit Academy and the Bridge in Costa Rica, can you briefly share what these programs are and the core philosophies that guide them?

[12:46] Heather: Yeah. Thank you. New Summit Academy is a therapeutic boarding school for boys, and the Bridge is our young adult gap program. Both programs welcome students for six months, nine months, sometimes even a year, to basically take a time out from their home environment and really kind of stretch themselves in Costa Rica.

And so we have a very strong program that includes academics, whether it’s a full teaching team at the high school or at our young adult program, they can also take university classes. But really, what the goal is here is for students to embark on a journey of personal growth and really connect with themselves and understand better how they function at their best, and how they learn, and how they can set up their own framework and scaffolding to be successful.

A lot of times that requires that they redefine success for themselves as well, because I think so many kids, it’s like a fish in water. You sort of absorb what other people’s definitions of success are for yourself without really being intentional about, well, who am I, and how do I function best, and what fills my soul and gives me purpose?

And so being in Costa Rica, taking a time out from your home environment, and actually pursuing that with the support of our guidance and our mentors and our teachers and our therapists is really useful to just kind of reconnect with yourself and redirect yourself towards a future that you can really get excited about.

So whether it’s academics, we have a strong community service program, cultural immersion—

[14:40] Lori: Of course.

[14:41] Heather: Kids are learning Spanish. They’re learning about Costa Rican culture outdoors. We live in a beautiful climate where it’s pretty much the same temperature year round. The only thing that changes is how much rain there is in the afternoons.

But it’s really a great opportunity to be out in nature and to connect with people and a culture that’s really warm and welcoming. So we see a lot of transformation in our kids, and often many who have had negative academic experiences before—whether that’s because learning is just different for them, they’re challenged differently in a traditional school environment, or whether because socially it gets overwhelming or is hard to integrate.

[15:27] Lori: Yeah.

[15:28] Heather: So we’ve been doing this for 21 years here in Costa Rica and just find a lot of reward in seeing young people sort of wake up to their own gifts again and start to envision a different future for themselves.

[15:45] Lori: I love that. It’s beautiful. And I watched a video of yours that kind of explains the program, and just the pictures of the joy in the kids’ faces, and just interest in learning, and the ability to be outdoors—I think it just is something very magical for them in a way.

[16:09] Heather: They do a lot of things they never even imagined they could, or even would want to do. And that gives a lot of sense of resilience and competence that perhaps they didn’t have before.

[16:23] Lori: And what is your role there?

[16:25] Heather: So I’m one of the founders. There’s a team of five of us who founded New Summit Academy in 2005, and then the Bridge young adult houses—we have a male and a female house for the Bridge—in 2012. And so I’m one of the founders, and I’m also the executive director.

But my background is education and psychology for at-risk adolescents. So my passion has always been non-traditional learners. And how do we help them see that they are gifted, that they have so much to contribute to the world when in a traditional setting it doesn’t feel like that sometimes, certainly.

[17:06] Lori: Yeah, yeah. So from what I understand, you use a model called supportive immersion. Can you explain what that means?

[17:17] Heather: Yes. Over the years, as we’re trying to train new staff, new teachers, new psychologists—like, well, how do we work with students and why is it different, or how is it different—we struggle to sort of fit ourselves in a box of one particular method or approach.

So Dr. Danny Rescio, who’s one of the co-founders and actually the director of our young adult Bridge houses, has done just so much research. It’s his passion to understand how people learn and how we can create transformative, experiential learning for them.

So supportive immersion is something that we worked on together to try to define and name how we do what we do. And it just fits that since our students are immersing in a different culture, that the word immersion fits in there.

And also the supportive piece, which is: we’re not just going to drop you off in a foreign country and say, “Good luck, we hope you build some resilience.” We’re going to actually scaffold experiences and design experiences for you so that you’re pushed just enough outside of your comfort zone that you are doing something novel. You’re a little bit anxious about it, you’re nervous about it—but that’s actually what is required for learning, right?

You have to pay attention and process what you’re going through in order to learn anything from it. So really, like jumping from Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development concept, but in a real-world experiential learning model.

So the desired outcome is that students are transformed through these experiences and developing what we call PROPS skills, which you can think of as like propellers for a plane. Like, what are the skills needed to propel us forward in the direction that we want to go?

And so proactive purpose is the first P. R stands for resilience. O stands for openness and open collaboration. The second P is problem solving, creativity, and the S stands for self-governance. So those are the five sort of categories of skills that we’re trying to help students develop in order to continue to propel themselves forward.

Now, how we do that as mentors and guides is by connecting with the students, which is basically trying to understand: what is it that they need? What’s the need behind what they’re going through or what they’re feeling, or what’s getting them stuck right now?

The second C is collaboration, which is: how do we help them find their agency? How do we help them find their power and their voice? And what can they do in this situation to move forward?

And then the last is scaffolding, which if we go CCC, it’s connect, collaborate, and construct. But that last piece is really what we teachers are good at, is scaffolding experiences—creating a structure and a support so that they can learn the skill or the concept that needs to be learned in that experience.

So hopefully that made sense. The way that I explained that supportive immersion is basically immersing into an experience with support so that you learn skills and move forward.

[20:40] Lori: That’s great. And you mentioned that they’re immersed—immersing, goodness—immersing themselves into a new culture. So I’m curious how immersion in Costa Rican culture, language, community service, real-world learning that you mentioned support the growth for your learners, and maybe all your neurodiverse learners, right?

[21:09] Heather: Yes, yes. Okay. There’s different levels that functions on. But what we see is—one thing is Costa Rican culture. And if you’ve ever visited Costa Rica, what people immediately pick up on is the pura vida, the pure life sort of way of living, which is a slower pace of life. People are not rushed. They stop and say hello. They lend a helping hand.

And so just that aspect of Costa Rican culture sort of takes the pressure off right from the start, takes it down a notch, lowers the anxiety levels, lowers the pressure, so that kids can kind of be—they can just be more comfortable being here.

And then, you know, something like learning Spanish is scary for a lot of our students, in fact, especially students who, for example, are dyslexic or say, “I can’t do languages. I just can’t.” And it’s like, okay, sure, you can’t do languages, no problem—let’s just play this game in Spanish.

And I think what it helps students do is feel it, right? They’re not stuck trying to figure out how to conjugate this verb. They’re really just practicing it. They’re living it. And they realize that communication and language isn’t just words. It’s actually charades half the time when you’re trying to learn a different language. You get stuck. And so you start acting something out, or you learn to read nonverbal cues a little bit better because you can’t understand the words as well.

So it really becomes this multisensorial sort of real-world experience where they don’t feel the pressure to be perfect. And they learn that they can make mistakes and they can fail and they can laugh at themselves.

And other people are trying to learn English too. And so they’re also having this experience of Costa Ricans making mistakes or having a funny accent, and just realizing like, “Oh, they’re not self-conscious about that. Why should I be?”

And so it really creates this beautiful relational way to learn. And that’s just using Spanish and language as an example.

But there’s also this sense of community in Costa Rica is another thing that’s really powerful for our students. We do a lot of service projects, but they’re not projects where we’re going to clean something up or paint something. We’re going to help a community with something that they’re working on.

So whether it’s the elementary school across the street, or whether it’s this restaurant—this lady who has her own restaurant and wants us to help her paint a mural or design new menus—they’re really feeling like what they’re doing matters to someone.

At the Bridge, actually, the young adults do a lot of even construction projects where they’re helping people—single mothers with four kids—helping them sort of make their living situation more adequate for the children. There’s an orphanage three blocks down the street.

And being able to go play with kids and see that these kids get so excited for our young women and our young men to show up and just give them attention—just pay attention to them—it helps our students sort of reorient themselves to what matters and focus less on “What are my grades?” or “How perfect am I in school?” but more like, “How do I make a difference in someone else’s life? And how does that feel for me?”

And that in itself is probably the biggest takeaway that our students have.

And yeah, and then, you know, we’re in nature. We do a lot of outdoor activities. They learn to surf. We go on kayaking trips. We hike. And we have these beautiful ocean views. And so there’s also this connection with nature and our own bodies, and that creates a very holistic learning experience for the students.

So for a neurodiverse learner who maybe has felt out of the box a little bit too often, it really helps them see that there isn’t a box and there doesn’t have to be a box. And if anything, they’re all these unique points of reference in which they can thrive and make a difference and find purpose.

[25:41] Lori: I love that connection with your community and the service projects you’re doing that are worthwhile. But it, I think, you know, it just gives also that sense of purpose, which we all need—some purpose and autonomy, right? So that’s a really interesting aspect of your program.

[26:07] Heather: It is. And I think as technology becomes more and more prevalent in our lives, the more we can connect humans with other humans and see that we still matter to each other—yeah, I think that’s a really important foundation to lay for our kids.

[26:24] Lori: Yeah. Well, I think it’s important to ask—you know, you’re mentioning that these kids may have struggled in their past school environments, and so they come to Costa Rica. Where are they coming from? And how do they hear about your school?

[26:45] Heather: Yeah, yeah. So, yes, that’s a good point. Because a lot of our students, although they choose to come here, they’re choosing after an experience that has been really challenging for them.

And so either students have stopped going to school altogether, or they have been asked to take a leave of absence. For example, maybe some students have taken medical leaves from being overwhelmed or not functioning very well.

So typically they are coming to us as kind of a reset or an intervention to kind of clear things up and get them back on track.

And so they may come to us from their school counselor’s office. They may come to us from an educational consultant who is an expert in finding sort of the right educational environment for neurodiverse learners or students with special needs. They may find us online—that happens sometimes as well.

But typically they’re finding us after having sort of hit a roadblock where they cannot continue either in their home environment, or in their boarding school environment, or in their traditional school environment, because it’s just not working for them anymore.

They’re falling behind academically, they’ve had issues socially, or they’re starting to struggle with unhealthy coping mechanisms—whether that be substances or video gaming or relationships that aren’t healthy for them.

So yeah, we actually are seen as sort of an intervention to help them reset, figure out what works best for them so that they can then return home or return to a boarding school environment where they’re going to be able to move forward with more clarity.

[28:42] Lori: And I imagine that when they first come, it’s probably a large learning curve for you and, of course, for them. Can you just give me an example of how you might help that individual feel a sense of belonging or feel comfortable in those first few days?

[29:13] Heather: Yeah. As we all know, when we go to a new country, it can be pretty overwhelming. And for some kids, that may feel exciting, and for other kids, that may make them want to shut down.

And so, yeah, our orientation program is really geared towards making sure that they have mentors—both staff and students—who are kind of saying, “Hey, here’s how things work here. Come with me. Shadow me in classes. Just get to know the teachers. Don’t worry about what homework you have to do yet.” Just sort of, again, supporting them into the immersion into our community or our culture.

We have orientation blocks of time in the schedule where they go and they’re working on their healthy lifestyle plan, which is basically looking at, well, what is my schedule going to be here? What kinds of sports or yoga or swimming, running—what am I going to do to sort of keep myself balanced and functioning at the highest level that I can function at?

So between the mentorship and the orientation program, and then helping them figure out their healthy lifestyle plan, their healthy technology use plan, we often do an orientation trip where we’ll take the newest kids on a little weekend trip to sort of, you know, one of the volcanoes or hot springs or something like that in Costa Rica and just kind of introduce them to some of the beautiful things of Costa Rica while we connect as a small group and help them get to know sort of how they tick, what their goals are here, and really tap into what it is that they want to get out of this experience.

Because that’s not the same for every student. And that’s really important for us to be aware of too—like, what do you hope to gain from this experience? And so how do we harness that goal of yours or that vision that you have for yourself?

And then we can help you scaffold your goal plan and scaffold your activities around that so that you’re building the skills that you want to develop while you’re here.

And then, of course, we have therapists who are meeting consistently with the students individually, in small groups, and with their families as well—to help the families also become a better support for their sons and daughters. Coaching skills on how they can parent their child differently, as we know from working with neurodiverse students.

You know, parenting doesn’t come with a handbook and everybody has their opinions about how you’re supposed to do it. And we all feel like we’re doing it wrong. And so it’s part of it is also that—helping parents understand their child better, helping parents understand themselves better, and how they can connect with their child in a different way so that they’re connected and supporting their child when they leave our school as well.

Yeah. And we also normalize the ups and downs. I think that’s really important too. Kids think that they have to be perfect and that it’s going to be easy. And when it gets hard, they think they need to leave. And it’s like, no. This is part of building resilience. This is part of learning problem-solving skills—getting through those hard times and seeing you can do it.

[32:44] Lori: And so what would success look like for you for New Summit Academy Bridge program?

[32:55] Heather: That’s a great question because we’ve always talked about redefining success. And if you ask kids, they’re going to say, you know, money and fame, and that’s the messaging that they’re getting.

The black-and-white messaging is that you’re either rich or famous. That’s what success is. And just statistically, it’s not possible for a lot of people to be successful if that’s the definition that we’re using.

So success for us is that our students and their parents leave us with a more realistic and authentic view of who they are, how they function, and where they want to go in life.

Our motto is: find something within yourself to offer the world around you. And that’s really about, again, connecting with: what is your gift? What do you have to offer your family, your friends, your community, the world?

And if you feel that you’re contributing to the community and you have something valuable to give, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, it doesn’t matter if you’re famous, because you will feel fulfilled.

And that’s truly how we function, and that’s how we want our students and families to walk away from this experience—learning that about themselves.

[34:23] Lori: Yeah, it goes back to that purpose.

[34:27] Heather: Right. And mattering. Finding purpose. And how do I—how do I matter, and who matters to me? And how do I show gratitude for that? Yeah. And that’s really kind of the foundation of mental health as well.

[34:45] Lori: Well, I’m interested to know how you think maybe schools—what schools could do possibly earlier, before a crisis or a major transition—to better support students who might be struggling socially, emotionally, or academically. That’s a big question.

[35:07] Heather: Yeah, I mean, I think—well, maybe what we just talked about, which is: what are the messages that you’re sending to the kids? How are you defining success? Or are you defining success?

And if you’re not explicitly defining success in your school, what implicit messages are the kids receiving about success, about what is a priority, about what matters?

Again, it’s the fish swimming in the water. Your culture is the water. And you are sending messages whether or not you think you are. And if the poster you have on the wall doesn’t match your actions, the kids are going to follow and take heed to your actions, not to the poster on the wall.

So I think being intentional with your vision, making sure that your values and your priorities are connected to what’s actually happening and how you’re training staff and faculty and parents.

And then I think as much social and emotional learning that you can integrate into your school—kids need that, especially with this younger generation growing up with more technology. They need spaces away from that to really get in touch with themselves and each other and understand what it means to be socially connected, not through a phone.

And that’s not just an SEL class, which can be helpful. I mean, we teach psychology seminars here and the kids eat it up. They love learning about how their brain works. That’s really useful.

But also helping teachers—training teachers on what language do we use, what processes do we use when a child is anxious or dysregulated or needs a break—how are we addressing that? How are we supporting that? Because again, that’s sending messages to the students as well.

[37:10] Lori: Yeah, I liked what you said about those messages. I’m thinking with a lot of international schools, even the messages they’re sending out to the community in magazines or what have you—they’ll show, you know, our students are going to these universities. And that’s their measure of success, is that they’re going to these high level, maybe Ivy League universities—celebrating that and not celebrating maybe the student who has done really well in music.

I mean sports they always celebrate, right? But yeah—or drama—or just, there’s just so many different ways that a student can succeed, as you’re saying. And we don’t get to see enough of that in the advertising of schools.

[38:09] Heather: And I understand why administrators and marketers do that because that’s what parents often want to hear about. And so I think it’s all of the spokes on the wheel need to take a look at how they’re defining success, what they are prioritizing.

Because I think sometimes schools will do that because the parents are their audience.

And I actually, when I speak with parents as they’re applying to our school—I mean, typically when they’re coming to us, they’ve had to really take a look at themselves and say, okay, this isn’t working at home, or this isn’t working at our international boarding school. What do we do?

So they’re in a different phase of the process where they’re starting to have to look at something changing.

But so many parents say, “I just want my child to be happy.” And you say, well, actually, do you want your child to be happy? Because I don’t know if they’re going to be happy at Harvard.

So there’s again, the words we use and the actions need to match. We really need to take a minute and be sure that—because our kids can see right through us and they know when we’re just feeding them.

[39:31] Lori: Sure, 100%. Yeah. So how do you guide these families through this process, perhaps deciding to enroll in your—in a boarding environment? What advice do you have for counselors who are helping families? Or what do you do to support the families?

[39:51] Heather: Yeah, that’s a good question too. I mean, in the application process, we’re really just trying to help parents figure out if we can help them—if we’re a good match—because we can’t necessarily help everyone.

Some students may need more structure and support than we offer. Some students may not need as much support and structure that we provide.

So in the application process, we’re really trying to help parents figure out: do you need us? Is this a good time for you to do something like this? Or does your son or daughter need more than we have to offer?

And that’s just through a lot of conversations about everything from history to maybe there’s psychological testing or educational testing that’s been done. And we’re just trying to figure out, is this the right place for you?

And then once the student’s here, we actually have an ongoing parent program where parents are being coached—what I was talking about earlier. But how does your child learn? What are their strengths? What are the obstacles that can get in their way?

How can you communicate differently, support differently, so that your child can thrive?

And then offering parents a community as well, because I think a lot of parents feel alone in this journey and feel like failures themselves because they’re being judged for whatever reason—because they can’t get their child to school on time, or because their son or daughter is having mental health struggles or learning differences.

And so they themselves feel isolated and ashamed of feeling like a bad parent.

So I think also offering parent community groups where they can just join and talk and get advice from other parents and just not feel so alone on this journey.

And then before students leave, you know, we want to help them create a transition plan because a lot of students do end up being quote, unquote successful here and sort of getting into their groove and figuring out what works for them and then going home.

Obviously, if you don’t change anything in the environment and everything’s the same—including how you communicate or how you interact or what’s going on at home—then kids often can sort of fall back into old patterns.

And so also creating those transition plans to help families sort of change things at home and create systems and structures that are going to help the whole family thrive and stay connected.

[42:26] Lori: What you’re describing sounds so ideal with, you know, what you’re doing with the students and with the families. And I’m just wondering—how do you do it? How do you have all the—how do you have enough time? I think that’s what people will want to know from listening to this.

[42:45] Heather: And that’s the boarding school environment, right? It’s the water we swim in. It’s the life we’re living.

And we have obviously a very large staff. There’s a lot of resources required to provide this level of structure and support.

And we have a lot of therapists who are working with the students and with the families doing the coaching. And I give our therapists so much credit because they brilliantly work in the afternoons and evenings after the academic day.

So we’re also able to provide this kind of round-the-clock structure and support so that during the daytime kids are in school and the teachers are supporting, the administrators are supporting.

But really we’re trying to get them used to being in school and functioning in that environment to the best of their abilities.

And then afternoons and evenings we’re doing sports and exercise and clubs and activities. And also therapists are around doing sessions and family work.

And yeah, it takes a lot of people. We have a lot of wonderful professionals who are experts in different areas and living their passions, supporting families.

[44:04] Lori: Amazing. I’m curious how you’ve mentioned collaborating with the student and listening to them. So I am wondering how you evaluate that student voice, especially for students who may not have felt heard in their previous school settings.

[44:24] Heather: Yes, it’s so important—the student empowerment piece—because if they don’t integrate what they’re learning as their own, then we’re just a different environment that’s providing the scaffolding that they need, which is helpful while they need that external support.

But eventually, if they don’t internalize that for themselves, and if they don’t know how to create their own structure and create their own support network, then what are we actually doing? You know, we’re not teaching them to be more autonomous and use their own power and agency to make their own lives better and solve their own problems.

So the students are engaged from the very beginning in the goal-setting process. So they set their own goals in academics, in student life, and in their personal growth—in other words, the work they’re doing with their therapist.

So they set their own goals, and then their advising team, which is made up of all three of those areas, meets with them at least once a week, if not twice a week, to sort of check in and say, okay, these are the strategies we’re trying out this week. How’s that working? Oh, great, let’s keep going with that. Oh, this one’s not working—okay, let’s try something else.

And so it’s a lot of trial and error where we know a lot of these strategies may not take—they may fail—but that’s okay because the student needs to experience that, to know what does work for them.

And they also need to experience failure to know that’s just part of the learning process—that not everything is going to work for them the way that it worked for their parents or the way that it works for their sister or their brother or their friend.

But being able to do that trial and error for strategies and then sort of adopt what works for you is really the most important part of the learning process for them.

And we also have student council—so it’s a big student council. And so students are working direct—like, we have an activities coordinator on student council, and so they’re working with the activities faculty to plan the monthly calendar of recreation and service projects.

We have an operations liaison who is in charge of the dorms, and the kids go to that person and report things that might be broken or not functioning well in the dorms.

We have a budget, so the students have their own budget to manage for activities or for their clubhouse or new clubs that they want to start.

So we do try to find ways to give them a lot of voice in what kinds of activities and clubs that we’re having in the recreation piece, as well as leadership positions on student council.

And those positions change every two months. So almost everyone gets an opportunity to participate and have that leadership experience.

[47:25] Lori: That’s great. I really should have asked this at the very beginning, but how many students are actually there?

[47:31] Heather: I know everybody’s probably imagining, like, 200 kids, but it’s just 25 kids at the high school. And then in our gap programs, it’s 10 to 15 young men and about 10 young women.

So again, the young adults are living in a house. There’s a male house and then a female house. And so that’s more geared towards university living with roommates, menu planning, cooking, sharing the chores, learning how to maintain things in the house, planning your weekend activities and outings.

And so, you know, there it’s the same concepts at both the high school boarding school and the young adult houses, but just, you know, for a different age group.

[48:17] Lori: Got it. Yeah.

[48:20] Lori: Well, we’re coming to the end of this podcast, and I’m just curious: what gives you optimism about the future of inclusive education worldwide?

[48:34] Heather: Yeah, I think, interestingly enough, this is a very unpredictable time for education in general because of the advances of technology.

And in some ways, I think that can feel scary, but it also feels interesting in that I think that the traditional way of learning is not going to exist in the current form.

And so I think we’re becoming more creative with how we learn, and I think that’s only going to benefit non-traditional learners.

And I think that sort of the models of what is or what should be are going to slowly break down, which is going to create room for a lot more creativity.

[49:31] Lori: Yeah.

[49:32] Heather: So I’m pretty optimistic about people finding strategies and finding a place for themselves.

[49:39] Lori: That’s the dream.

[49:41] Heather: Yeah. Yeah.

[49:44] Lori: All right. Well, thank you so much, Heather, for your time and for the program that you’ve set up for these young people. I want to come—

[49:56] Heather: Yes. Come visit. Come visit. And that’s—I think that’s also something interesting about education internationally too, is technology allows us to be more connected. And so why not create communities across the world between schools and learn from each other and expand what our kids are exposed to in a good way.

[50:22] Lori: Yeah. Well, thanks again and keep doing the good work.

[50:26] Heather: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Lori. I appreciate your time and all the work that you’re doing.

[50:30] Lori: Thanks.