High Country Adventures: Colorado Springs teacher promotes creativity & the outdoors
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - With Teacher Appreciation Week falling on the same week as Mother’s Day, we’re highlighting one teacher who’s putting a spin on traditional education – focusing more on nature and creativity. She says the concept has also brought her family closer.
At first glance, Mountain Song Community School might look like a normal school.
But, the K-8 charter school, nuzzled in a quiet neighborhood on the Westside of Colorado Springs, comes with a little extra magic.
“We get to really foster a sense of wonder because the world that we’re surrounded by, the world that we live in, is so beautiful and amazing,” Ieeda Banach, who teaches the 7th grade there, told KRDO in an interview Friday.
Ieeda, and the entire Mountain Song Community School, follows Philosopher Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf Method, focusing on the whole child – intellectually, emotionally and physically.
“I don’t think anybody’s right or wrong - just that they’re different,” Ieeda explained how she doesn't think badly about traditional schools.
“You’re part of things,” Ieeda’s daughter, Ivysse, elaborates on how she and other students learn at Mountain Song. “You’re not just listening to the teacher drone on and on.”
The students learn in the classroom as they would at any old school - but also on some wild field trips, feeding the chickens in their outdoor space, tending to the garden and digging in the mud pit.
“We came outside with a two-by-four and a log and I said lift the dumpster up and they were able to do it,” Ieeda explained one physics experiment she came up with. “You’ll remember lifting the dumpster, you’ll remember playing in the sand – and then when you have good connected memories to your learning, then you want to keep learning – and that also builds lifelong learners.”
They put an emphasis on community at Mountain Song, too (it's in the name, after all) – which Ieeda says has helped her with motherhood.
“It’s not just me by myself struggling and scraping to make this happen - this is all of us together,” she said.
And, Ieeda says this idea of putting the phone down, enjoying what’s in front of you, and pacing yourself through life has strengthened her relationship with her own little ones.
“I snuggle with her every morning… every morning,” giggled her son, Sebastian.
“She makes me feel really safe and happy and comfortable with her,” Ivysse added.
“I know at the end of the day that’s what’s best for them, right? To just have my attention, to have my interest, to have my presence - and also give them space to let them and watch them grow as well,” Ieeda told us.
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