For two weeks this winter, high school students at a local Quaker school left their classrooms to create art, perform community service or go hiking in southern California.
The Thornton Friends School in Silver Spring has run its winter intersession program for students in its upper school for the last five years. In the program, held between the regular semesters, students take a two-week break from their normal classes in order to immerse themselves in something different.
This year, the 59 students in grade 9 through 12 at the New Hampshire Avenue school were able to choose among five classes — art, music, literary magazine, basic home repair and outdoor leadership — all taught by Thornton faculty.
‘‘With a 50-minute period, sometimes you feel you’re just getting into something, the bell rings, you move on,” said Michael DeHart, head of school at Thornton. ‘‘[This program] is a recognition that to truly learn something, one of the ways is to just throw yourself into it.”
Therese ‘‘Trez” Robbins, 17, was one of 11 students who decided to take the outdoor leadership class, for which they traveled to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California for two weeks of hiking, camping and wilderness survival training.
Students lived for days without toilets or running water and had to hike for miles carrying 50-pound backpacks.
‘‘One day we got lost and we were hiking through these canyons with 70-degree inclines,” said Robbins, a Mount Rainier resident. ‘‘We had gone for warm weather, but it didn’t work out that way. We had to deal with extreme cold.”
Other students chose to stay at school to focus on artistic endeavors.
Everett White, 16, of Silver Spring helped edit and lay out the school’s literary magazine, called ‘‘Multi-brain Cereal.” In addition to organizing 80 pages of student content, White said he contributed poems and cartoons. ‘‘It’s nothing I do on a regular basis, but I had a chance to do it,” he said. ‘‘It was pretty freeing and I’m glad I did it.”
Students who took the music class started a four-piece rock band complete with guitar, drums, bass and vocals, and had faculty instructors walk them through warm-ups and music theory, and helped them learn different songs.
‘‘I wish I could keep doing this over and over again,” said Rockville resident Ben Sacks, 16, who played guitar.
Others in the art class sketched and painted on canvases they made themselves.
In the home repair and construction class, students not only learned skills but also were given a chance to help others. After building a wall out of wood, plaster and drywall, the construction students took trips into Washington, D.C., to rehab the home of a low-income family selected by a local Quaker organization.
‘‘I was helping somebody with stuff and I’m still learning,” said Ayah Belal, 14, of University Park, who said she took the class because her father works in construction. ‘‘I kind of understand what he does now, all the hard work.”
Norman Maynard, principal of the upper school, said the classes vary year to year depending on the interests of students. After the intersession, which ran Jan. 22 to Feb. 5, the work of students in the art classes has been on display through the school, and the rock band plans to perform for the student body, he said.
Maynard said the program’s ultimate goal is to complement classroom lessons with those learned in the real world.
‘‘You need these skills to have a more well-rounded life,” he said.
