Exeter Students Return From Thanksgiving Trips
While most students went home to wind down from the arduous fall term during the Thanksgiving Break, a group of Exonians was instead learning about completely unfamiliar cultures. From visiting the church in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached and eating authentic Southern fried chicken, to hiking for hours on a 7,000 foot mountain in torrential rain while exploring the native wildlife of Maui, students and faculty were able to experience the U.S. through many facets.
We saw all kinds of rare and beautiful birds and plants, from 'i'iwi and amakihi birds to koa and ohi'a trees to nearly extinct lobelia plants to a swarm of coral reef fish when we were snorkeling...
Originally, the intention of the Thanksgiving Break programs was to provide for international students who were not able to travel home for the break, according to Director of Global Initiatives Eimer Page. This year, the three trips that took place were the Civil Rights Tour in Montgomery, Alabama, the NOLS Bahamian Sea Kayaking trip in Maui, Hawaii, and the “Making of America: Rock and Roll and the Civil War” trip to Nashville.
As the programs started off as an outlet for international students, Page said that the Thanksgiving trips were confined to areas within the United States. “We’ve made a conscious decision to make Thanksgiving a time for Exonians to explore the U.S.,” Page said. “The trips should also connect with the Exeter curriculum or the values we foster, like diversity and community,” she continued.
In Maui, students explored the island by snorkeling at Molokini crater and visiting the Waikamoi Preserve of the Nature Conservancy. “We saw all kinds of rare and beautiful birds and plants, from 'i'iwi and amakihi birds to koa and ohi'a trees to nearly extinct lobelia plants to a swarm of coral reef fish when we were snorkeling,” Biology Instructor and leader of the NOLS Bahamian Sea Kayaking trip Townley Chisholm said.
For Chisholm, the highlights of the trip were “the physical beauty of Maui, the incredible diversity of terrain and ecosystems, the chance to talk with people who love the place and who care for it and spending time with a wonderful group of students in a magical place.”
Having taken AP Biology with Chisholm, senior Lili Hernandez spoke of the value in working with him outside the classroom. “Students will ask [Mr. Chisholm] a question and often he’ll have you go find the answer for yourself,” she said. Hernandez specifically reflected on when Exonians had the opportunity to speak with the native people of Maui, many of whom live off of their own land.
The Maui trip ran for the first time this year because of its biological, geological and cultural resources available for students to explore. Chisholm said that because Hawaii is “the setting for some of the most astonishing adaptive radiations of plants, birds and insects on the planet. It also has a tremendous volcanic geology and incredibly rich traditional Hawaiian culture.”
While the group in Maui spent time snorkeling and engaging with Hawaiian culture, Exonians in Nashville explored the regional history of the South revolving around slavery and the American Civil War.
Having visited a cemetery in Chattanooga, upper Sarah Liberatore said, “You hear about the numbers in history books, but seeing the cemeteries in real life and thinking about all the wars that are going on right now, how they deeply impact individuals’ lives– it had an impact on me.”
Students also visited hallmarks of the music production industry, including the Ryman Auditorium, home of the historic Grand Ole Opry, the Johnny Cash Museum, RCA’s Studio B and the famed studios of Music Row.
Senior Danny Miller, a multi-instrumentalist, was especially drawn to the musical aspects of the trip. “I wasn’t interested in country music before, but going on the trip gave me an open mind about different types of country music, not the popular kind,” he said, adding that he enjoyed visiting places like the Reformed Baptist Church where Elvis Presley had once recorded.
Around 300 miles away, the Civil Rights trip, consisted of seventeen students and three faculty members, explored the origins of the Civil Rights movement. This was the largest group of the three, composed of students in all grades as well as day students. The group started off the trip with a visit to Selma, Montgomery.
The most memorable moment in Selma for prep Dennis Kostakoglu was when the group visited Brown Chapel. A striking aspect of the entire trip for Kostakoglu was his discovering how “religion ties people together in the South.”
Meanwhile, for prep Lilly Pinciaro, the experience was “very emotionally tolling” because of the content presented at historic sites. “In school, we were taught that America has gone really far in its dealings with racism, but then you realize it’s actually not true because there’s still systematic oppression in the government of people of color,” she said.
To prepare for their experience, all students had to finish Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and the first two chapters of The New Jim Crow. During the trip, they spent an average of two hours each night to discuss what they had learned and debrief. “The group of people were interesting; discussions worked well and brought our understanding to a new level,” Pinciaro said.
“It was such a diverse group which I love,” said chaperone and Athletics Instructor Olutoyin Augustus-Ikwuakor. “We had people with diverse experiences, so there were definitely times when people in the group disagreed with each other.” Reflecting on the significance of the trip, Augustus-Ikwuakor added, “What I want people to take away is that there is no one way to do things. It’s important for us to be able to listen to people with different opinions from ours.”
After coming back to Phillips Exeter, the group is working on assembling a video from footage that senior Ori Evans took throughout the trip and planning other ways to share what they learned with other students on campus.