Reflections on Year One as Smokies School Coordinator

Written by Anne Thomas-Abbott, Smokies School Coordinator at Tremont Institute

In 2017, the year of the Great American Eclipse, I was in my twenty-third year teaching English at Fulton High School where I was present for the life-changing investment the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont made in a group of our students by offering them the opportunity to step outside – outside of their classrooms, their neighborhood, and their comfort zones – for a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To say that our students returned transformed would be an understatement.

Fulton High School students visiting the Smokies during the 2017 eclipse. Photo by Kaela King.

I noticed, though, that more than talking about their experience with the eclipse itself, which they admitted was “pretty cool,” their stories were mostly about Tremont, the connections they had made–both personal and academic–and the way their experience had expanded their ideas about themselves and their connection to the natural world.  It was remarkable.  It was also a remarkably good experience for my colleague, their teacher, who found for herself a source of inspiration, motivation, and renewal with a partner educational institution that prioritizes curiosity and wonder as pedagogical compass settings.  

That auspicious beginning grew a fruitful and enduring partnership between Fulton and Tremont, and it’s why, seven years later, when it came time for me to retire from a career teaching indoors, I didn’t miss the opportunity to apply for a new position at Tremont called Smokies School Coordinator and turn myself into an advocate, ambassador, and facilitator of outdoor education.  In this role, I get to represent all that Great Smoky Mountains National Park has to offer to support our regional schools and teachers – that includes the work of Tremont, Discover Life in America, and the National Park Service itself – and I am able to support the work of teachers who believe in the importance of outdoor experiential education. It’s not everyone who can say they’ve had even one “dream job,” and now, after a year in this new role, I can brag and say I’ve had two.  Here are three takeaways from my experience so far.  

• The work of getting kids outside to learn is done by champion teachers, many of whom make the decision to prioritize outdoor learning when the conditions they teach in don’t necessarily make it easy to do so. Champion teachers all over our region voluntarily take on added hours as well as extra tasks and responsibilities to set things up so that their students get opportunities to enrich their academic and personal development with significant learning experiences in schoolyard gardens, in neighborhood and state parks, in the Smokies with the National Park Service, and at Tremont.  It is almost entirely the case that none of these champions have district- or even school-level funds to support their work. These champion teachers take it upon themselves to install and maintain school gardens, organize support from community partners, raise money for materials and transportation, and manage all kinds of extra paperwork, not to mention seeking out and attending professional development opportunities and collaborating with other like-minded educators to ensure that their methods produce the results they desire.

• The list is longer than I ever imagined of committed groups of non-profit, government, religiously affiliated, and for-profit entities that support the work of our champion teachers. Their influence and capacity-building efforts often go unrecognized, yet they are essential to creating meaningful enrichment opportunities that take young people beyond the school walls.  I fear that any attempt to list all the groups working to support schools and teachers would be incomplete and betray my own beginning understanding of this essential network, so here’s a sampling:

West View Elementary students during the Parks in Classrooms program. Photo by Jessie Snow.

Beardsley Farm, the Community Schools project of United Way Knoxville, Knoxville Garden Alliance, Seven Islands State Bird Preserve, Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, Trout Unlimited, UT Gardens, Keep Blount Beautiful, Keep Tennessee Rivers Beautiful, Knoxville Botanical Gardens, Zoo Knoxville, Ijams Nature Center, Knox County and Blount County Public Libraries, TSU Extension, Youth Horticulture Roundtable, Conservation Fisheries, Trees Knoxville, The Sierra Club, Battlefield Farms, The Bottom, Second Presbyterian Church, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalists – and that’s just a start!

Many of these organizations – including Tremont – have come together to develop the Knoxville Outdoor Learning Coalition; this mighty collective is working together to create a connection point for sharing experiential education opportunities and resources with the vision of getting “Every child, every grade, every year, outdoors.” Helping teachers know about and connect with the good folks in groups like the ones above is rewarding work and expands everyone’s understanding of community.