“It was awesome!”

You might suppose the speaker is 13 or 14, but you’d be wrong.

It was Gloria Carter describing the hike she took with Mountain Valley Middle School students as part of the school’s two-week experiential program. Gloria and Jen Thebarge staff the office at the school.

At the culmination of the program last Friday, I followed the sound of the band U2 to the auditorium, where students and teachers were watching a slide show of their activities. After it ended, Principal Ryan Casey called head custodian Bruce Jamison to the front.

“None of us realized what a challenge it would be to get 325 people safely to and from” the River Valley learning sites, he said. “We couldn’t have done it without you.” Joined by the two assistant custodians, Jamison received a rousing standing ovation.

It took five years to achieve the vision principal and teachers shared: Engaging students, including those who learn best through hands-on activities, in experiences outside the school building.

You may have encountered middle school students most anywhere in the River Valley over the last two weeks. They hiked Tumbledown and White Cap and the Ledge. They toured the Island in Rumford, did comparison shopping for pizza and walked Route 2 from the bowling alley to the top of Falls Hill.

Seventh-graders created a River Valley travel brochure. Eighth-graders collected insects and geocached them all over the place, applying math and mapping skills in the process.

Geocaching uses GPS coordinates to find someone else’s cache, such as  souvenirs, lucky rocks, insects and other items.

There were interesting projects displayed in the halls of the school, but maybe the best was outside the building. The sixth-graders visited Rumford Center Cemetery to study the legends on very old headstones and did rubbings. Back in their classrooms, they created their own gravestones in cardboard.

Outside the school’s main entrance the “gravestones” were propped up close together on the grass; there must have been over a hundred of them. Most had actual birth dates and imaginary demise dates. Some had tributes to themselves, including, “He was a really good football player.”

The study did more for the students than improve academic skills. It gave them a chance to look around their own beautiful, interesting world. For quite a few students, looking around their community these last weeks was a first.

Asked if he would have the summer off, Bruce Jamison replied, “Oh no. We’ll work all summer cleaning and painting. We’re remodeling the cafeteria.”

Seems the Parent Teacher Organization, through refreshment sales at school events, is well able to foot the bill for all new tables and three new booths with upholstered seats — Joe showed me a picture — where kids who have shown special concern for others can enjoy their lunch.

All the hard work of coordinating transportation for the River Valley study unit didn’t faze Bruce.

“We had a blast,” he said.

Linda Farr Macgregor is a freelance writer; contact her at [email protected].