By Monica Sheats
Mini-School, which has now been around for 36 years, is an alternative program that was started by Randy Nelson and Doug Berg, designed to help students that were in desperate need of help, whether mainstream was just simply moving at too fast of a pace, or if they were in fear of not graduating on time or even at all. Mini-School has helped thousands of struggling kids achieve more than they may have ever thought they were able to do, by helping them see that they really can succeed and do well.
Mini-School has gone through many changes in the past few years, some of which are good and some of which are bad. The “old” Mini-School offered a place for kids to come and get educated in all the subjects needed to graduate, just in an alternative environment, and with a little bit of a different teaching style. For example, to help students earn the required amount of gym and science credits needed to graduate, they would take week long trips to Nebraska, the Boundary Waters, and other various nature sites. On these trips they were required to keep journals, cook their own food, set up their own tents, canoe up and down rivers, and hike miles and miles. They carried all their things that they needed to survive in the wilderness on their backs, along with canoes. Not only were they expected to do it for themselves but to help out others, when needed. They got to experience what it was like to live without power, running water, and other things that we take for granted in our daily lives. Also, on these trips they were able to really get to know and bond with the other people that were there, learning to have patience with each other and listen to one-another. The “old” Mini-School had a great atmosphere, in the sense that everyone got what they wanted and needed out of it. Mini-school’s a lot like a huge family, always helping each other out and being there for one another.
Over the past few years, Mini-School has changed dramatically, but not all bad. Although still very much helping kids succeed, classes have been cut down to only offering three classes, which are; math, English, and history. These classes are still offered to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, and are also helping kids that are in Mini-School do well in their mainstream classes by offering them additional help, if they need. For example, Ramona is very helpful and considerate when it comes to kids needing help getting their community service project hours by providing things for them to do, whether its serving food to local citizens at Loaves and Fishes or taking a weekend trip to Timber Bay to chop down trees to build a new cabin.
Lately Mini-School has become more like mainstream, like in the ways that we now earn our credits and how things are being taught. In previous years, we learned new things that we need to know for everyday life, like how to survive in the wilderness and get along with all different types of people. Also, it’s getting harder to get more one-on-one time with the teachers and we are required to do certain things that weren’t required before like the new accelerated math program and reading certain books (but don’t get the wrong idea, we’re not lazy), where as before, our curriculum was more planned out to teach not only the basic school subjects like math, science, English and history, but also to teach us the everyday life skills that we need, like how to do your taxes and how to manage your money and buy a house. Adding these things isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just makes it more like mainstream, and the whole reason kids come to Mini-School is to get away from that sort of curriculum, to be taught in a way that they can understand a bit better and get the attention they need.
Also one thing I know that kids really miss is the Mini-School recognition nights. Although we still have them once at the end of the year, it was fun to have them every month or so, just to be able to sit down and watch a slide show of things they’ve been working on and to see the kids receive awards for things that they accomplished and did well, or even just tried, I think that receiving these awards really made the students feel good about themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that what we have now isn’t good enough, because that’s not it at all, we just don’t want to see what we have lost.
We hope that everyone who reads this sees how important and great Mini-School really is. How it can really change a person for the better by giving them a better attitude and out-look on not only school, but life. And even with all the changes, Mini-School is still going strong and we all hope to see it stick around for another 36 years, or more. We want other kids to be able to experience what we have.