Written by Emile Holleman, a teacher at Clifton Hills Elementary School, after a trip to Tremont in fall 2023.
Last spring, I was a new teacher, coming to Clifton Hills to cover a maternity leave. When I first heard about the upcoming Tremont field trip, I instantly knew I had been there before, but I couldn’t quite recall when or why. Different field trips and summer camps ran together in my head. With a little bit of digging, I was able to find a picture of myself and some other girls on a 6th grade Tremont field trip coming from St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School.
I’m in the front row, on the far left, fully embodying my “please don’t take a picture of me” era in the spring of 2008.
As soon as I arrived with the students, memories came pouring in. I’d eaten meals in this room! I’d slept in this dorm! I’d sat around a campfire in this council house! While I experienced the joys of being a teacher at Tremont, watching my students in a completely novel environment that both challenged and delighted them, I was also treated to bursts of memory. While Joey instructed my kids in the best practices for catching salamanders, I realized that this was exactly when and how I’d learned about salamanders and the sensitive skin they use to breathe, knowledge that I’ve carried, used, and spread to others since I was twelve years old. Similarly, no one had to teach me the lyrics to the scat song. They’d been lodged in my mind for fifteen years! I wasn’t sure whether or not I had hiked to the waterfall as a kid, but when we reached the top and a staff member showed us how to use rocks to make face paint, I had another burst of memory.
The really great thing about taking my students to Tremont while carrying those memories is that I could testify how these new experiences, from the scientific to the serious, had the power to stick with them to adulthood. Something that any teacher will experience at Tremont, whether or not they were able to visit as a kid, is the completely new perspective you get on so many of your students. Going back to the classroom, I had grown closer to my kids and had a better understanding of their interests and strengths. This was especially true for my students who are English Language Learners and my students with disabilities. Something about the experience created new lines of communication between all of us.
This fall, Clifton Hills took their second trip to Tremont. I feel incredibly fortunate that my principal has been able to secure the funding to take our students to Tremont without putting any burden on their families, and doubly fortunate that I’ve now experienced this wonderful place and program as both a teacher and a student. I hope that Clifton Hills can continue to visit the Great Smoky Mountains Institute for many years to come, but if not, I will continue to cherish the memories I made there.
I’m in the back row, in the right corner, living my best teacher life in the fall of 2023.
Want to have your own Tremont experience? Join us for summer camp, teacher professional development workshops, adult naturalist classes, or a field trip with your school.
Thank you to Emile for sharing her reflections!
