Phil works with an early CCBS student on a building project

“I hate you.  I’m going to run away.” That was my son at 7 years of age – willful and independent – pretty typical, I know, but then I added, “Good. I’ll help you pack.” I stood there while my son stuffed his red Elmo stuffed toy and other essentials into his small daypack and headed for the door. I was slightly amused, but also amazed and ashamed that this little powerhouse of energy was able to put me in that emotional spot so easily.

In another instant I was remembering myself as a child that age and shouting that same thing to my parents, righteously justified and utterly convinced of the injustice of my life. I also remembered the blessing uttered by parents and grandparents everywhere, “May you get one just like you.”

I often find that the universe has a sense of humor – like a perpetual April Fool’s Day.

I love my parents completely and unconditionally…a gift from the universe that was hard wired into me at birth. However, the deep love and fierce sense of protection I feel for my son is a gift from him. There is just no way I could have reached that level of emotion and devotion on my own. I needed the help of another soul, one who at times is helpless, at times is independent, but is almost always a true reflection of myself.

At Cherokee Creek Boys School, the small school with the big heart, we are entering the Visionary aspect of our Lessons of the Medicine Wheel; a time when we emphasize Truth and the lesson, “Tell the Truth without Blame or Judgement.”

For me, truth is always mixed with a little humor. And the truth is that the love we feel for our children can make fools of us all. Learning to laugh at ourselves and see our own reflection in our children is a real and true gift.

Happy April Fool’s Day

Nick Linscott, CCBS Math and Science Teacher

You remember your favorite teachers forever. They inspire, provoke, challenge and celebrate your abilities. Under their influence you thrive; your possibilities expand.

Imagine if you were asked to nominate a teacher for the coveted “Golden Apple” award for teaching excellence. How would you persuade the voters that your candidate was the best?

This is exactly what Academic Dean and Language Arts Teacher Denise Savidge recently asked students to do in an assignment tackling the persuasive essay. Many of our students responded with essays about Cherokee Creek Math and Science Teacher Nick Linscott (LEGO League Coach extraordinaire!). Nick has been a valued member of the CCBS team for over 7 years and is loved for his unique style.

Excerpts from students’ essays are below:

“I feel that Nick Linscott deserves the Golden Apple. He helps us learn when we need to. He is assertive in the way that he talks and tells us directly what he wants us to do.

Nick helps me learn more math than I already know. I can trust that he will help me when ever I might need it. He is very intelligent and can answer almost all the questions I can think of. When I am confused with something I can ask him and he will explain it to me in amazingly accurate detail.” – Anonymous

“Nick is loving ans caring. I like his personality. I also believe that if I work with him, he works with me so in turn I am very appreciative of him.” – Alec

“Nick is an exceptional teacher because he helped me go from 6th grade to Algebra 1 in one year. He taught me physical science and biomedical science. He is helping me learn today in science.

Nick is a good friend that I can trust about anything. I can talk to him and he will listen to me.” – Jon

What are the common denominators of great teachers? Looking at the boys’ responses, it appears they recognize that teaching is only part of the equation.

Nick Linscott definitely deserves a Golden Apple! He is a talented and effective teacher. His caring and compassion are appreciated by staff and students alike, and that adds up to an inspiring educator.

Nick often repeats the words of wisdom given to him by his mother, “To get a friend, you have to be a friend.” Golden words to live by.

Therein lies the difference between a good teacher and a “Golden Apple” recipient.

As we contemplate what is “real and true”: What kind of teacher are you? Who have been your greatest teachers? What made them great?

Coach Kory Byrd during a 2010 season game

Starting next week, the Cherokee Creek Boys School Bears will play their first game of the 2011 Basketball season. Head coach Kory Byrd has been practicing with the team for the past few weeks, and the players have come a long way in their skills and understanding of the game – it will be an exciting season to be sure – Go Bears!

 In addition to new skills, the team has been learning the importance of drawing the opposition’s defense out of position. Coach Byrd has been working with the team on many different passing drills. Some are designed to help the Bears break a “trap” set by the other team, some to move the ball up the court, and some to pass the ball in from out-of-bounds.

One drill in particular has caught my attention this year. When the Bears are trying to score a basket, they take time to “work the ball,” which means pass it from player to player around the perimeter of the defense. The purpose of all these passes is not so much to look for an open player – as I have thought for many years – but rather to try and draw the defense out of position. Once the other team’s defender has been caught out of position, one of ours will be open, and we get an unguarded opportunity to score!

On the other end of the court, Coach Byrd works with our middle school boys on their defense. We play a zone defense and Coach Byrd is keen on seeing that we don’t get “drawn out of position.”  Many of our players are first-timers in organized basketball, and our coach teaches them the boundaries of their positions, over and over again. He tells me that by the time the season starts, their boundaries and positioning on the court will be habit, and that’s when we will really start playing good defense.

Think with me for a moment about the concepts of “boundaries” and “defenses” that our award-winning coach Byrd is teaching our students and how his lessons on the basketball court can help us too!  We all have “defenses” that we build up through experience and over time.

Some of those defenses may be very helpful, like not taking an insult personally. Good defenses generally involve practicing good boundaries – which keep us in position – or “centered” – and help protect us. As long as we practice good boundaries we won’t be caught off balance, and we can better guard what we value.

Other defenses don’t serve us so well. For example, you may chose to say nothing or give in to something you don’t want to do, in order to protect yourself from the fallout of saying “no.”  Playing “out of position,” or with poor boundaries exposes the things we value – like our integrity – to failure.

Knowing that practicing good boundaries and “playing in position” will help us play much better, the challenge is to find those areas where we have been “drawn out of position” and move back within our boundaries!

I hope you all can come and watch our students play this season. I am already proud of the work they have done learning their positions, and can’t wait to see them put their lessons about good boundaries into practice! Thanks to Head Coach Byrd and his assistant coaches, Yanic McDowell and Jachin Wettstone, for teaching all the basketball skills and “real and true” life lessons to the students of Cherokee Creek Boys School!

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Upstate South Carolina.

Teamwork State Champs! Nick with the 2010 team in March.

I have been on this earth for nearly twenty thousand days. Included in those days are some that, because of their life-altering consequences, I remember to the smallest detail. Lightning strikes out of the blue sometimes and changes my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

What I think makes me a little special and different is the fact that I have had two memorably transcendent days through my work. Both occurred because of CCBS and our involvement with FIRST Lego League.

FIRST Lego League (FLL) is an international robotics competition between teams of middle-school students in which judging is based on four criteria: Teamwork, Presentation of a Science Project, Engineering and Robot Performance. FFL inventor Dean Kamen wants to “inspire young peoples’ interest and participation in science and technology” by bringing a hint of athletic fervor to a competition with a guiding ethos of “Gracious Professionalism.” 

When asked if I wanted to coach a team I agreed without hesitation. I didn’t know then that lightning was about to strike.      

Part of the Coach’s Promise for FIRST Lego League is:  “The children do the work.”  That was pretty easy for me to observe that first year, and ever since. I’ve always felt that I best empower my students by giving them an opportunity to try something new. Then I step back as far as is safe and let them do it their way. Over the years I have hybridized the FLL Coach’s Promise, my own coaching philosophy and the CCBS’s mission. My teams are coached to aim for two objectives: “have fun” and “Show up as Warriors who represent themselves, their families and our school with Gracious Professionalism.”

In February of 2006, after a long day of competition at the South Carolina Convention Center in Columbia, my name was called as the Outstanding Coach of the Tournament. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, and in front of 80 teams, their coaches, parents and the judges I had won it! I obviously did some things right that season and day, but I’ll leave it to others to explain why, out of eighty coaches, I deserved such an honor. Lightning had struck me and I’ve never been the same since. 

Lightning struck again last March at the South Carolina State FLL Tournament when our team was called as the State Champion in Teamwork.  Those eight guys had demonstrated outstanding teamwork all day in a chaotic environment with infinite distractions and challenges. I was still stunned to the point of tears when their efforts were so publicly recognized.They had used the concepts, tools and techniques we staff and parents work so hard to help them learn, and the result of their own hard work, to gain the championship trophy, made of Legos of course.

In January I will head to the regional FLL competition with the 2011 team. Just like the last five teams, they will be empowered and given opportunities to succeed with my support instead of my intervention. As a result, they will come together as a team, do the best that they can do with all of the tools they have been given and walk away with an experience full of value.

 And, who knows, lightning may even strike again…

Five members of the team at about 1:00 AM Thanksgiving morning. From left: Jon, Adrian, Daniel, Calvin and Drew.

It’s 12:30 AM Thanksgiving morning; it’s cold, dark and most people are sleeping. But 6 Cherokee Creek Boys School students are slowly waking, dressing and making their way into the dark to our turkey roasting pit. These 6 boys are the 2010 Turkey Roasting Team, who have eagerly volunteered to stay up all night feeding logs into a bonfire  to create a massive bed of coals. The fire must be carefully tended and fed for 5 hours to create enough coals to cover five turkeys…the main course for the coming Thanksgiving feast for CCBS students, staff and guests. Once the turkeys are covered with coals, the entire pit is covered with dirt to seal in the heat and allow the turkeys to slow-roast for another 5 hours.

It’s a lot to ask of any teen to give up sleep, be fully attentive and be self-managed throughout the night, but our team meets the challenge  with determination, enthusiasm and a large amount of fun. Pit-roasting turkeys for Thanksgiving has been a tradition since we opened CCBS…a ritual that has been passed on by each generation of students.

There is something comforting and meaningful that keeps us returning to the same traditions every year. Rituals, traditions and celebrations have the power to strengthen and unify families…yours, the CCBS family and the society at large.

At CCBS our mission is to, “challenge boys and their families to discover what is real and true about themselves and the world around them.” I imagine that, while quietly staring into a crackling fire, the members of our Turkey Teams have discovered something about themselves. No doubt they have thought about their families at home. And, maybe their thoughts were also that they are stronger than they thought, more focussed than they thought, or just more sensitive to the world around them than they thought. Their normal markers and priorities are shifted during this night-long vigil and they become more in tune with the rhythms of the world.

It is remarkable to watch the shift in myself and our students as the night slowly creeps along. This “CCBS family” tradition seems to feed our souls as well as our bodies. Just before dawn, with the job completed, these 6 boys make their way back to bed tired, happy and full of a sense of accomplishment.

As most of our boys prepare to return home soon for the holiday break, I challenge you to reflect upon the “real and true” traditions and rituals that define your holiday season and add meaning to your family’s celebration. And I wish you a wonderful celebration of discovery!

Check out this link to the CCBS Bear Tracks Newsroom for more pictures of the Turkey Team in action: Pit-Roasting Photos

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Upstate South Carolina.

Students and families get together for S'mores during last week's Family Trek

I grew up visiting state parks throughout Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. They were my family’s escape from Florida summers to cooler temperatures and actual seasons. As a result, my brothers and sister and I cannot reflect on our childhood without recalling our park experiences. We were a “yours, mine and ours” family and those trips made us whole. Without them, I believe we might have retained more awareness of our differences instead of coming together as one family.

At Cherokee Creek Boys School, the families we serve need opportunities to become whole again. What better place than a state park…on a Cherokee Creek Family Trek…or a family vacation? With its particular orientation to family friendliness and its rich history with the Civilian Conservation Corps, Oconee State Park is special.

There is a story about a years-ago park manager at Oconee who decided to “update” the cabins by adding televisions. As the tale goes, when the park’s regional superintendant heard the news he ordered the televisions to be removed immediately stating that, “The day Oconee’s cabins have television, is the day we have failed to do our job.”

Today, if you stay at an Oconee State Park cabin, you will enjoy a working fire place, a screened in back porch complete with rocking chairs and even central air and heat. You will not have TV, WiFi, or a good cell phone signal. You will have time together for hiking, canoeing and other recreation, to make S’mores over an open fire  and stay up late telling family stories around the fireplace.

Your family may be non-traditional, single-parent, multi-generational, fractured or newly formed… but in that sacred, if sticky, “time together” place you will discover what is real and true about your family.  

PS…the next Family Trek is in May 2011

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Upstate South Carolina

David LePere

“Why do we have to write in our journals,” complained one of the teenagers during our 6-day backpacking trip.

“Because,” said my co-leader, “all of these lessons you have been learning out here translate into lessons for your life back home. You need to dig to find them…and that happens when you journal! Look, the challenges are pretty obvious out here. We can see ourselves for who we really are when we’re challenged by a physical task…we have to figure things out and respond. And, we can take this great self-discovery and do something positive with it.”

He continued, “Back home we get busy and distracted and just don’t take time to ask ourselves questions like, ‘What did I learn from this?’ or, ‘How might this help me in the future?'” He capped off his speech with a declaration, “So, if we are going to go to all the trouble of carrying these big heavy packs, sleeping on the ground, getting tired and being rained on, we ought to take the stories, insights and lessons out of this trip and use them for the rest of our lives. Now take your journals, and go find a quiet spot with a good view and do some writing!”

Journaling is a discipline. Journaling is also a tool of self-discovery. At Cherokee Creek Boys School, we know that chronicling interesting events or personal observations helps boys develop emotionally and gain insight. Journalling offers a time of quiet refection and an opportunity to come face to face with yourself…something that is often missing in our busy lives.

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Upstate South Carolina.

We continue the River Lessons, a series of blog posts from our students’ perspectives.Students recently reflected on their Treks experiences through writing and made connections to the Lessons of the Medicine Wheel and the 4 aspects of self they learn to explore while enrolled at Cherokee Creek: the Warrior, Visionary, Healer and Teacher.

Note: A “duck” or “duckie” is an inflatable kayak. They are frequently used with beginner and novice paddlers to experience whitewater rivers. They are by no means “baby boats” and require effort and skill to move and keep on course.

Student: Dominic
Aspect: Teacher
Statement: I am Flexible

“For me I was flexible because I haven’t duckied before much less been by myself in and on the river. I was originally going to go in a double duckie with Zack but we all did singles so I had to learn and make all the decisions.”

Dominic demonstrates the Wisdom of Flexibility and the capacity to address a challenge alone.

When have you unexpectedly found yourself alone in your own boat and faced with new challenges? What have been your greatest accomplishments of flexibility?

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Westminster, SC.

Students recently reflected on their Treks experiences through writing and made connections to the Lessons of the Medicine Wheel and the 4 aspects of self they explore while enrolled at Cherokee Creek: the Warrior, Visionary, Healer and Teacher. The River Lessons are an 8-part blog series sharing these unique student perspectives.

Student: Greg
Aspect: Visionary
Statement: I am Creative

“I think that in the Visionary I am creative because I found new ways to do things. For example, making a light overhead so I can read in my tent, or putting up a tarp, or making a fire like building a teepee and building a log cabin around it – also on the river I made it fun by playing on the rapids – that is also creative.”

Greg’s playful, curious nature empowered him to create more comfort in his tent and and more fun on the river.

What kinds of things do you do to make your world more fun or comfortable? How have you approached a recent situation and improved it with your own authentic style of creativity?

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle-school boys, ages 11-15, located in Westminster, SC.

River Lessons is a series of blogs from our students’ perspectives. Students recently reflected on their Treks experiences through writing and made connections to the Lessons of the Medicine Wheel and the 4 aspects of self they learn to explore while enrolled at Cherokee Creek: the Warrior, Visionary, Healer and Teacher.

Student: Mike
Aspect: Warrior
Statement: I am Courageous

“The Warrior is someone who shows up and chooses to be present. The I am statement courage was used more than any other skill on Trek. I used courage when I set up my tent in a difficult staking area, hiking Tallulah Gorge, sliding on the rock and talking to two girls, Danielle and Stephanie, and was able to ask for Danielle’s number in front of a big group of people. I had many self-confidence struggles before I came to CCBS and feel I made a huge change in one social conversation.”

Don’t you just love Mike’s courage and the way he stood up for himself!? He so clearly defines a rite of passage when he describes the, “huge change in one social conversation.”

Where do you stand up for yourself and declare your own value? When have you had to gather every drop of your own self-confidence to address a situation?

Cherokee Creek Boys School is a therapeutic boarding school for middle school boys, ages 11-15, located in Upstate South Carolina.