For Immediate Release

Area Educators Explore Timeless Questions Posed by Thoreau

Walden Woods Project Launches Approaching Walden Summer Seminar

LINCOLN, MA; July 8, 2003– Sixteen teachers from across New England will gather in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Woods for a two-week summer seminar offered by the Walden Woods Project.  The Walden Woods Project is a non-profit organization committed to preserving and protecting land of ecological and historical significance in and around Thoreau’s Walden Woods while offering quality environmental and humanities programming at the Thoreau Institute.  

Approaching Walden is an interdisciplinary program designed to explore the timeless questions posed by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson about choice, conscience and character.  Through lectures, excursions and discussion groups, participants will learn how to use Thoreau and Emerson’s philosophies as a teaching method.  By the end of the program, participants will write a curriculum unit describing plans to integrate the course material into their classroom teaching. The curriculum units are posted on the website for the Walden Woods Project.  The public can access these curriculum units by logging onto www.walden.org.

The Walden Woods Project has been hosting summer seminar programs for high school teachers for 7 years.  During that time, 135 teachers have participated in the program.  Estimates indicate that between 10,000 and 15,000 students nationwide have been taught by Approaching Walden participants using curriculum units developed during the program. 

Gwynne Sawtelle, an English teacher at Westborough High School participated in Approaching Walden, Summer 2001.  She signed up for the program with the intention of developing an American Studies curriculum.  Within the first few days she realized it was a better fit with an MCAS prep course she was developing.  “Many of the students taking the MCAS prep course have trouble focusing, thinking and reading deliberately.” Says Sawtelle.  “Thoreau’s idea of living deliberately, being mindful and present in life, mapped onto the idea of reading deliberately.”  Sawtelle’s curriculum unit utilized concrete reading strategies presented during Approaching Walden.  She emphasized the concept of thinking deliberately by presenting 2-3 paragraphs from Thoreau’s Walden in a focused way. Sawtelle has already experienced success, “The kids responded really well to the concepts.”

The key to Approaching Walden’s success lies both in its interdisciplinary framework as well as the coursework’s relevance to contemporary issues. “We tend to separate learning into language, science and math but we don’t live in a world divided into course topics.  Using Concord and transcendental authors as a model enables teachers to show impact from a ‘real life’ perspective,” says Amy Macera, Program Coordinator.  The issues of 19^th century Concord such as human rights and social reform, communication through literature and dialogue and humankind’s relationship to nature, transcend the years and become especially relevant for 21^st century students  “The philosophies of Thoreau and Emerson are uniquely important today because of their implications for contemporary environmental, social reform and human rights issues.” Says Macera, “They raised questions about how we act as individuals while recognizing that our actions are not without some effect on the larger society.  The interdisciplinary framework encourages curriculum development that requires students to ask really hard questions in the context of our global environment.”

Approaching Walden relies heavily on collaborative partnerships with local organizations such as the Concord Museum, the Concord Historical Collaborative and the Massachusetts Audubon Society.  Chris Leahy, Gerard A. Bertrand Chair of Natural History and Field Ornithology at Massachusetts Audubon Society and long-time presenter speaks to the value of these partnerships. "Education has always been a critical element in Mass Audubon's mission of ‘protecting the nature of Massachusetts,’ and from the beginning Approaching Walden has provided an immensely valuable forum and link to the teaching community.  I am always impressed by the high level of engagement of the teachers that I meet through the program; Thoreau is clearly attracting the high caliber of professionals who we are interested in reaching and who benefit most from the   expertise that MAS has to offer."

About the Walden Woods Project

The Walden Woods Project is a national conservation, education, and research organization committed to preserving the land, literature and legacy of Henry David Thoreau. Founded in 1990 by recording artist Don Henley, the organization uses the land it has protected in Walden Woods to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility, both cornerstones of Thoreau's philosophy. In 14 years, the Project has protected nearly 140 acres in and around Walden Woods and provided educational programming for hundreds of teachers, students, and life long learners. The Walden Woods Project also administers The Thoreau Institute, a research center near Walden Pond that houses the world’s foremost collection of Thoreau-related materials.