Read the full transcript of Episode 60 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, which features two students from Midland School (CA) sharing their experiences with a no-tech, nature-based campus where growing your own food and heating your own living quarters are just part of a normal school day. Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada and River Peace talk with host Tim Fish about the challenges and rewards of their unconventional education.
Tim Fish: People often ask me if I have a favorite episode from New View EDU. My answer is yes! The conversation we had with students at the end of Season 4. While l love all our conversations with adults, I find that young people can help us see what we need to do and how we need to design like no one else.
Well, friends, today we’re doing it again. We’re going to talk to young people to close out Season 6. But before we introduce our guests I want to tell you a little bit about their school. Midland School is a boarding school community of about 80 students and 20 adults, sitting on a 2,800-acre campus in Southern California. You know, Midland is different in a lot of ways. At Midland, the students take care of the place, everyone has a job, life is really simple, and you can even bring your dog..
Midland is a community that knows who they are, what they value, and what they are not. They are living the founding mission that began it all in 1932: Needs Over Wants. And, I think you’ll find in our conversation today that they are also living many of the virtues that we have been exploring for the past few years.
I am super excited to welcome two Midland students to our studio. First up is Ayanna, a Midland senior. It was the 2,800 acres of wilderness, emphasis on intentional community, and the lack of technology that drew Ayanna to Midland her freshman year. And since then, she has been heavily involved in the school's Outdoor Program, the 10-acre farm, and the working ranch, which is home to several herds of horses and cattle. She’s also one of two Head Prefects.
River is a second-year student at Midland who enjoys drawing, surfing, and hiking in his free time. He decided to attend Midland to have immediate access to the outdoors and to live in a close-knit community. River's favorite class is Farm Internship, because they learn how to grow and care for their own crops—and as part of the Farm Crew, he picks and delivers those crops to the school kitchen.
Friends, I guarantee this is going to be an incredible conversation. Let’s get to it with Ayanna and River.
Ayanna and River, welcome to the New View EDU studio. Thank you so much for taking time out of your incredibly busy lives to spend some time thinking with the New View EDU community.
So the website for Midland says, ”When you're curious and eager to learn, living your education becomes second nature.” I'm curious, like, if you would both just introduce our listeners to Midland School. What's it all about? How does it work? How's it different?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: So I guess to start Midland, Midland's campus sits right at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest, and our home is on about 2,800 acres here in Santa Barbara. We have a 10 acre farm, which is spectacular. We have a working ranch with a herd of cattle that we harvest for our food. About 50% of our food comes from our working ranch and farm. We have a magical outdoor program that is currently, has taken a couple students actually on a backpacking trip. They just left yesterday, so they'll be out for a couple days. And Midland has a really robust jobs program, which every student is involved in, regardless of grade level, and you enter into that jobs program your freshman year and kind of work your way through it until you graduate.
River Peace: Midland is a very unique place in a special way, and I think the part that's most unique about it that I enjoy the most is how everyone connects so quickly. And even if you've just come to Midland as a freshman and you've been here for just three weeks, it's crazy how quickly that you become close with all of your friends, and all the friends I've made at Midland, I feel, are my closest friends I've ever had. And that's a really special component of Midland, and I think that's what I appreciate about it. And yes, of course, I love the campus and all of that, exploring every half holiday with my friends is amazing. I couldn't ask for a better school.
Tim Fish: You know, what is it though? Why does it happen in three weeks, when you arrive as a freshman? I mean, Ayanna, when you arrived as a freshman, did you have that same experience? Like in the first few weeks, all of a sudden you found you were getting really close with your other students?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, my freshman year was a little different than River's freshman year at Midland because I came here in 2020, during COVID. So the campus looked a lot different and felt a lot different to live here just because of all the different regulations that we had to abide by to stay safe.
But I think part of those conditions of, you know, being on campus, secluded to each other, we couldn't leave, we couldn't go anywhere else off campus, got us very, very close with each other, even though we couldn't be physically close to each other in any proximity. And I think that experience, that surreal experience of freshman year, is what has kind of brought my class closer this year as seniors, because we had this very, very unique to Midland experience that none of these other students have had in the same way. And I think that has been a big part in shaping my class’s dynamic.
Tim Fish: Yeah, I mean, you've really got to believe something to come to Midland, right? You got to sort of really want to be part of this intentional community, right? This sort of group of people that are, it's small in the number of people, relatively, and really large in the amount of land that you sit on. There are not many schools that sit on 2,800 acres.
You know, you mentioned a few things, Ayanna, when you were talking about this idea of the work program, this idea that we're all taking care of the place and taking care of each other. Tell me more about that program. How does it work, and how are students involved, and what kinds of jobs are you doing?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, so the Midland jobs program is very reliant on collective responsibility to function. Every student at Midland has a job. Those jobs range from classroom cleaners to bathroom cleaners to people who wash the dishes, a crew of students who wash the dishes, a crew of students who puts the dishes away once they've gone through the machine, students who clean the dining hall and cafeteria, a group of students who's out there taking care of all of our horses and cattle on the ranch, farm crew. So it’s really a wide variety of jobs. You could find yourself cleaning a toilet or shoveling horse poop on any given day. Kind of really depends student to student.
Tim Fish: There aren't many students who find those two things happening during their day.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: No, definitely not. And definitely not to start the day either.
Tim Fish: So it starts, the work, the work crew happens in the morning? Or it depends on the time of day, right? Some students are at different times depending on when they're needed, I guess, right?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, it depends on the job. So the farm and ranch crews will go out in the morning because, you know, they have to, the ranch crew has to feed all the animals. The farm crew harvests food for the kitchen for the day. And then the waiter crews and dish house crews rotate through meals. So there will always be a crew on every meal. But classroom cleaners and bathroom cleaners, it's kind of up to them just because there's not really a specific time that the bathroom needs to be cleaned, as long as it happens.
Tim Fish: Do you think, River, that whole notion of we take care of the place together, does that affect how you get that closeness that you talked about in three weeks, that community forms? Do you think that that notion that we're all in it together affects that at all?
River Peace: I believe so. I think that everyone is taking care of each other and you get to decide what the environment you live in looks like. And you really get to know what a person, who that person truly is when you see how they take care of the people around them. And there's that deeper level of connection. I find myself...not achieving, I'm not sure how to word that, but that deeper level of connection with someone when you see who they truly are when they're taking care of, not only themselves, but the people around them.
Tim Fish: Yeah, so it speaks to this idea, you know, when I'm out there and I go to schools a lot and I ask them, what makes you unique? What is the thing that you never want to lose your connection to? And the number one answer I get to that question is the community at our school. And I don't disagree. I think the community in many schools that I visit is amazing.
And I think that Midland is a little different. Midland has this depth, this thing that's different because you're 100% boarding, right? So there are no day students. Everyone who’s a student boards at Midland. And everyone has a job. Everyone takes care of the place, and everyone is involved in a lot of the other elements. And you have this outdoor piece. And one of the other things also in your introduction, Ayanna, you said that one of the things that actually attracted you to Midland was the lack of technology, right?
Tell me more, tell our listeners more about what you mean by lack of technology.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: We don't have our phones at Midland. We turn them in or leave them at home when we get to school. So there's just absolutely no opportunity for you to be on your phone at all during the day or even at night.
Tim Fish: Wow, nobody, just, just no phones, they just don't exist.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: They don't exist.
Tim Fish: Wow. And what do you think of that? How—was that hard to give up? Were you big on your phone before coming to Midland?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I guess I'm in a unique position because I didn't actually get a phone until my sophomore year of being at Midland, so I didn't have any prior attachment to my phone before coming to Midland. I think for some people it's an adjustment, but I don't think that for anyone it's such a chronic addiction prior to Midland that—I don't think for anyone having your phone is such a necessity that it can't dissipate from your mind that you ever had one in a couple days.
Tim Fish: What did you think of that, River, when you came?
River Peace: Well, I had, in 2020, I felt really attached to electronics and my mom noticed this, so she took them away basically. So I was kind of similar to Ayanna, where I didn't really have a phone when I first came to Midland. But then in the middle of my freshman year, I got one back again and I felt this connection again, I guess. But actually I've learned to really dislike my phone.
When I have my phone, I feel lazy and unproductive when I'm at home, and I just don't like it. I prefer being at Midland, out in nature, connecting, like having a candid connection.
Tim Fish: Yeah, like a real connection with somebody else, right? Who's sitting at the table with you when you're eating a meal or taking a walk with you or going on one of those hiking and camping trips, right?
River Peace: I think that without our phones, we show who we really are. A lot of the time when I'm with my friends from home, I find it hard to talk to them without them looking at their phone or showing me a picture or something from earlier that day. And it feels very different in a way, that I don't feel as connected with them because they're so attached to this part of them. And it's hard, yeah.
Tim Fish: So how has it helped you in the school part of Midland?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I'd say it's similar in some ways and different in others. We all call our teachers by their first names. Everyone's on a first name basis at Midland. Classes are pretty small, I think, which makes sense because the student body is pretty small, but it offers a really good chance for you to really connect with your teachers and for them to get to know you as a student in their classroom.
We eat meals with our teachers. The faculty have dinner with us five nights a week. We see them all throughout the day, when we're at breakfast, signing in, to get our meds, at dinner. I think our connection and proximity to our teachers is what is very unique about Midland in terms of relating Midland to other private schools or even just day schools, because the opportunities we get to connect with our teachers are heightened relative to other schools. I mean, teachers are so flexible here, they want to help you, they want you to succeed. They will take time out of their day to help you if you're struggling in a class. And they will try their best to help you get to a place of understanding, rather than just trying to memorize something for a quiz.
Tim Fish: And do you have quizzes and grades and GPA and transcripts and all that stuff?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, we have letter grades. It's kind of dependent on the class how the grading system works, but for the most part I think it runs pretty similar to other schools in terms of tests and quizzes.
Tim Fish: So when we had our first conversation, I remember you telling me a little bit about this idea of upper yard, lower yard and the housing situation. What's housing like? Where do you, is there some big dormitory you all stay in, or what's it like to live at Midland, River?
River Peace: Well, we have our own buildings that we call cabins. We have these cabins that we live in. And in upper yard, where I live, I don't have a roommate, but most people have roommates. I have a single, that's what we call it. And typically you have a roommate and you share the space with another person. And then we have bathrooms that are separate from the cabins that you walk to. And there's a freshman bathroom, a sophomore bathroom, and then a junior and senior bathroom. The juniors and seniors share a bathroom in Upper Yard.
Tim Fish: So when it's in the middle of the night and it's 30 degrees out and you have to go to the bathroom, you got to leave your cabin, right?
River Peace: Yeah, I mean, if you have to go, you have to go.
Tim Fish: That's right, that's right. And what about like, and I know you're in the lower yard, I think, aren't you, Ayanna? And like, how do you heat it? How do you heat these cabins? Because I've seen pictures on the website. These are not fancy cabins by any stretch.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: No, they're pretty basic structures. Four walls and a concrete floor and a wood stove to heat your cabin.
Tim Fish: So if you want to heat your cabin, you got to go chop some wood?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, you gotta chop wood, get your kindling, and then yeah, make your fire in your stove. And it gets pretty hot really fast, so it's a pretty good technique, but you have to work for your heating. It's not just a switch you flip.
Tim Fish: You know, one of the things I'm interested in is what your friends think. So as your friends are not attending, friends at home, I should say, cause you have great friends at Midland, but your friends at home, what do they think of you attending a school like this? Do they like, why do you give up your phone or why do you have to chop wood to heat your own place? Like, what is it like? What do they think?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, my friends were, they were just like, I don't know, what are you doing? I don't understand what, like what are you choosing to do? I, at the time that I was going, that I was entering my freshman year at Midland, we still used shower fires to heat our shower water. And I remember telling my friends that when I was applying and being like, look at this crazy school I found, you have to make a fire to heat your water for your showers and you get to chop wood and there's a farm and all of these cool things, and they were just like looking at me bug-eyed like, what are you talking about, this is crazy.
Tim Fish: Would you trade, you wouldn't trade it in, it doesn't sound like. It sounds like you'd want to keep this going no matter what.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, for sure.
Tim Fish: River, how about you? What do your friends think?
River Peace: My friends don't know a lot about Midland. I mean, they know vaguely what it is and all of that. But I think I told them a little bit about it, like how I go and collect vegetables for the kitchen every morning and how I chop wood and all of that. How we clean our own spaces. And they were pretty shocked. They, they didn't know what to say about it, especially the phone part.
I remember I was talking to my friend at one point, her name's Bree, and I told her, yeah, we don't have phones at Midland. And she was like, what? How do you survive?
Tim Fish: Yeah. How do you survive? I mean, there are a lot of people who would say, I would give up anything before, before I would give up my phone.
What has this school done to prepare you for college and beyond, for life? What do you think, both of you, from your experience at Midland, will always stick with you, will be with you for the rest of your life?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I've grown a lot at Midland in terms of my leadership skills, my own emotional growth and development. I think something that is kind of ingrained in you from the minute you get to Midland is very healthy and clear communication between you and your peers and you and faculty. And a lot of emphasis on respectful dialogue and constructive criticism.
And my ability to navigate conflict with my peers and also with faculty, or with other peers and faculty in whatever situation, has been really solidified because Midland, from your freshman year, is very intentional about making sure that you develop the skills to maintain relationships with people and how to navigate all aspects of having a relationship with someone or a group of people, and maintaining the responsibilities that you have as an individual in a community. Which also extends to, you know, your ability to know when to ask for help and know when you are overworked or need a minute and to be able to advocate for yourself. So I think I'm very much set up to move beyond Midland’s community in the sense that I have all of these tools under my belt to help me navigate what comes next.
Tim Fish: I remember when we were talking in our first conversation, you were talking about how sometimes, groups go off on a trip, a couple of days, and it's student run. This is not the adult thing. There's a lot of times when you're with students and you just gotta figure it out, right? Tell me more—is that true? Tell me more about that.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I mean, you're a 17 or 18 year old responsible for a whole group of teenagers, and whatever conflict or discourse that comes up, you're the one who's in charge and you have to manage that. So you have to be really confident in your skills.
It's a certain kind of leadership in your skills and being able to bring down and regulate a group in terms of its dynamic. And I think that it's one of the most valuable things that Midland offers its students, is the ability to, as teenagers, go out onto the property with your friends and camp. And I mean, besides the radio, you're just by yourselves. And I think it's a, there's a lot of beautiful things that come out of being able to do that. And it's not a lot of teenagers in America who get that experience.
Tim Fish: Who gets that experience to just leave and go out into the property with your friends and just be out there and sort of navigate what comes and be with each other? That's a really powerful experience.
What's it like to be a prefect? What's the job of a prefect? How do you lead in the community from that role?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: So I'm the head prefect from Lower Yard and I have a co-prefect, a co-head prefect from Upper Yard. And we, our job is essentially to be kind of a liaison between the students and faculty and to serve as, in a way, role models to the rest of the community. So we run assemblies twice a day. We put together the jobs list every weekend.
Tim Fish: So you decide who's going to do which job?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: There's a faculty who we also work with whose job is to manage the job program. But yeah, we have a lot of say in whose jobs it is. Yeah.
Tim Fish: You have a lot of say. Boy, I want to be your friend.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: So, yeah, we have a hand in the jobs program. We also had a table at dinner. So typically faculty each are assigned a table, and students will rotate through those tables on an assigned seating chart every week, and the two head prefects also have a table. So yeah, we meet with the faculty weekly, we meet with the Dean of Students and Head of School, and we also sit on the Student Council, which discusses a lot of issues relating to the student body. In the past couple years, we've made a couple revisions to our dress code, and we put together some events for the school.
Tim Fish: You have a lot of say, you have a lot of say in how things are done, and you have a lot of responsibility as well. What's it like, River, to have a prefect? What have you gained from being in a relationship as a freshman or a sophomore with your prefect?
River Peace: Yeah, it's really great to just, they feel like a friend but also a mentor at the same time. You can go to them for advice, or if you're in a dilemma, have a dilemma of some sort, then you can ask them to help you out in not just talking you through it, but actually taking action if you don't know how to. Yeah, they're very supportive and I feel that I really appreciate having a prefect.
Tim Fish: Yeah, I mean, it's really, that's an important kind of relationship to have, right?
I'm going to switch gears with you guys for a minute. So I want you to, we're going to go into invention mode, and I want you to imagine that we're going to invent a new school. And this school is going to have many of the characteristics of Midland, but it's not going to have 2,800 acres. In fact, it's going to be a high school, but it's only going to have five acres and a couple playing fields and a couple of buildings, and it's going to be located in kind of a suburban-ish area.
How could you take the magic of Midland and bring it to a school that doesn't actually have all of the land and all of the opportunity?
River Peace: Something that I notice the most at Midland is historical passion. Since Midland was founded, everyone that's gone to Midland and worked at Midland has had passion for it and cared about the place that they are stepping foot on. So having that passion from the very first construction of the place, of the school, I think that's key to having somewhere as magical as Midland.
Tim Fish: I love that. Did you just make that up? Historical passion. I love it. I love it. I love it. But it's true, right? When you come to Midland, you feel like you are standing in line with all the people, 90 years that came before you. And this is your time to live into that thing that is Midland. Midland is bigger than any one of you, right? That's super important, isn't it?
River Peace: Yeah, I mean you can see everyone that's ever been to Midland in the chapel that we have. We have boards of people, all of their names and what year they went to Midland.
Tim Fish: Wow! So your name will be on the wall in the chapel?
River Peace: My name is on the wall in chapel.
Tim Fish: So once you come at all, you get on the wall. You don't have to graduate.
River Peace: Once you've been at Midland for a year, yes.
Tim Fish: Once you've been at the school for a year, your name is on the wall. Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. All right. So I love that, we carry historical passion. You would feel the responsibility of being in this community based on what the others before you had. And the other thing is this clarity to the mission of what was it that was present when it was founded. And those things, need before wants, for example, are still present today.
What else, Ayanna, would you carry, do you think we could carry into a day school from, or from, to any other school from Midland?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I think it would be a mistake to assume that you need 2,800 acres to emulate an environment like Midland. I think like you were saying, it's the core values that Midland lives by every day that really make it what it is. I think self-reliance, respect for yourself and your community, and collective success, I think are very key aspects to what makes Midland run in the way that it does, and makes the community so involved in each other's success.
I think like, yeah, like River was saying, as long as there's a passion for the longevity of the place that you're in and a passion to make it better and continue to change as, you know, new students come in, and the world outside of us changes, I think you can emulate a place like Midland as long as everybody wants to be there and everybody is aligned in their passion.
Tim Fish: Yeah, that's a really good point, right? This idea, like, everybody wants to be there. Do you find that to be true? Do you find that the students who are at Midland want to be at Midland? Because if you didn't, you wouldn't stay. Do you find that sometimes students come and they try it out and they're like, nope, this isn't for me?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, Midland is not for everyone. I think it's also a mistake to assume that anyone can come into Midland and thrive, but it's not an experience that is suited for everyone. And I think it's great that some people come here and are like, actually, this is not really it for me. And some people come, they're like, wow, this is the place for me.
Tim Fish: What do you have to have to thrive at Midland? What needs to be in place for someone to be like, for it to click generally?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I think an open mind is very important to have here. You're going to be faced…Some of these people are, you know, as a new student, facing a lot of things that they might not have ever done before coming to Midland. And I think as long as you're able to be open to the possibility of being uncomfortable and embracing that, then you will be able to experience Midland for everything it offers.
And of course, you have to have some kind of boundary for yourself. I don't think, you know, it's not feasible for Midland students to just be wholly uncomfortable all the time here. But Midland is not an easy place to live and work and go to school. And I think it's a lot harder if you're stuck in how hard it can be.
Tim Fish: Man, that is big, Ayanna, that is really big. So it's not easy. And is that part of what makes it so magical?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: For sure.
Tim Fish: So I just did this thing. I took a sabbatical in the fall and I walked this thing called the Camino de Santiago, and it's this 500 mile walk across Northern Spain, right? So 34 days, walked 500 miles. And it was exactly what you said, River, the community formed super fast. Like deep communities formed super fast. And I was wondering one night to myself, why is this community forming so quickly? And you know what it was, in my mind? It was because of what I called shared suffering, right? We were all on this hard journey together. And it was in the doing the hard thing with others, that the really deep community formed.
Suffering may be a little bit of a hard word, but maybe not. I'm sure there are days when it feels a little bit, when you're rolling out of bed, you know, at three o 'clock in the morning, you have to go to the bathroom and you're going out in the cold. That might be a little bit of suffering, but is it in that hardness where some of the magic and joy really lives?
River Peace: Yeah, I mean, I remember this morning. Of course I remember this morning, but this morning I was going out to take care of the chickens to feed them and my hands were freezing. The sun hadn't risen yet and I had my Carhartt on. I was all bundled up. My hands and my nose felt like they were going to fall off. I was so cold. I was shivering. I was stumbling to…
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Oh, my God.
River Peace: I was stumbling to get the eggs. But anyways, um, in that struggle this morning, I found myself laughing because my hands were cold and I didn't know, I was trying to put the eggs in the carton, and I ended up breaking one of them. And instead of beating myself up about it, I started laughing and I just found it funny and found joy in somewhere, in a place where most people would be pretty miserable.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I think one of the core parts about Midland is that it pushes you beyond what you think your limits are. And because of that, you experience a lot of growth. And I don't know, I just, we have a week in the spring called midterm, which is not tests. It's not a bunch of tests, but it's a week off of school where there are a lot of different offerings available to the student body.There's a lot of different offerings, but what I signed up for was a hundred mile, six day hike to a nearby school.
Tim Fish: Oh my, so you know.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah. And I was like, oh my God, like I was excited. My group, the group I was really excited for. And I mean, the trip was kind of, it was miserable, but it was magical. It was—
Tim Fish: —So wait, wait, wait. So it was miserable and it was magical.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I mean, we were hiking like 20 miles a day. You'd start your day at four in the morning and we wouldn't get into camp until late into the night. But I got to have a lot of conversations on the trail with people that I'm really lucky to know and really grateful that I got to get a lot closer to over the hike. And I learned a lot more about everyone else and myself. And it was just incredible to see how everyone showed up for each other. I mean, it's a grueling, you're hiking so many miles a day, of course, you know, people are going to get tired, you're going to need to shift weight around.
But it was magical to see the ways in which everyone was caring for each other and looking out for each other and taking weight from other people and making sure that they were really attentive to how the group was doing. And had it not been for how attentive everyone on that trip was to each other's needs and their own needs, there's no way we would have made it to our, to the end, but because everyone was so able to articulate their own needs and help each other out, we made it to where we wanted to go, which I don't know, it's just a great success in a lot of ways.
Tim Fish: So this, I'm really interested in this whole thing. We've been talking a lot this season on New View EDU about the concept of productive struggle and the notion, and this is, kind of comes from psychologists and a bunch of other people and learning design theorists and folks who know a lot about the brain, that one of the conditions of learning is that you need to sort of build it yourself, right?
That you need to sort of go through a process of constructing. And often that has a lot, that has some struggle involved in it. To learn math deeply, You kind of got to struggle through it. It's not always going to be easy. And it's the sort of sitting in this, in the ambiguity, sitting in the angst, sitting in the, what you called, Ayanna, the miserable, to find the magic is a really important part of becoming who you are. And developing sort of your mind and your character, right? And it sounds to me like we could pick that up.
OK, what else would we take into our new school? Anything else that you're thinking of that we should bring with us?
River Peace: No phones.
Tim Fish: Yeah, if the 100-mile walk had happened with phones, totally different experience, right, Ayanna?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I don't even think you can really do that.
Tim Fish: You can't really do it. So that's it. No phones, right? And even your relationship with tech outside of phones at the school is different. You don't even have, like there's, can you get Wi-Fi in the cabins?
River Peace: No. There's no Wi-Fi in the living yards. There's only Wi-Fi in Middle Yard, which is like the common area. And we have Chromebooks that we use typically for schoolwork, and Instagram and social media is blocked during the school day. And then we have access to it during free time.
Tim Fish: OK, so you have like an hour or two hours a day where you could even get to Instagram on your Chromebook in the, in the learning yards, not in the residential yard. So like in your room, in your cabin and in the cabin you're sharing with someone, if you are sharing a cabin, there's no Wi-Fi, there's no tech. It's all about those connections. And if they said, Hey, we're going to put Wi-Fi in the, in the cabins, would you want it?
River Peace: No. I mean, some people actually are very...they really want Wi-Fi in the cabins because they find it easier to study in their cabins and such. But I also think that they're secretly hoping that there's going to be Wi-Fi in the cabin so they can watch YouTube and all of that during their free time, just relax. But yeah, I think that I wouldn't be as productive if there was Wi-Fi in the cabins.
Tim Fish: Yeah. So one of the things that I was, we were talking with a psychologist in one of our recent episodes. And I said to her, what's the most important thing that school does? And she said school needs to be a place where students and teachers develop really deep relationships, and that if you are able to develop those really deep relationships, that becomes the foundation for everything going forward. Would you agree with her?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I think it's one of the most special things about how students and faculty interact at Midland, is that you have a relationship in and out of the classroom. Our faculty know you very well outside of the classroom, and that translates really well into them becoming a teacher for you academically and not, outside of the classroom. And I think it's an advantage that Midland students have that a lot of other students don't have, where our teachers are able to see us as whole people outside of the classroom rather than just students in a classroom. And I think that really helps the students and the teachers develop a relationship that is one that is like a mentorship outside of the classroom and one that is more academically sound in the classroom. And I think having that connection is crucial to how students and faculty have kind of maintained their dynamic within the community.
Tim Fish: Yeah, that's so good. That's so good. You know, I think it's that those deep relationships are clearly being formed and they're being formed in the classroom. They're being formed at breakfast. They're being formed at, on the farm. They're at the ranch. These are all places, in the cabins, on those hikes where the students are taking, going together out into the property to go on those multi-day hikes. All of these things contribute to that work, to that forming who you are, and to helping you learn to go forward.
It's a whole lot more than the classroom, right? Classroom is important, but so much of what you've spoken about today is all that other stuff that really contributes to you becoming who you are. I think that's the other thing we could take into our new school. We could think about designing beyond the classroom in lots and lots of different ways.
Anything else you would take into our magical new community school that we were going to build?
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I think using unconventional spaces as classrooms is also really important.
Tim Fish: Tell me more about that.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Well, I guess this does have to do a little bit with having 2,800 acres of land, but I'm currently taking a geology class this semester. And I think this entire semester there's been two classes where we haven't driven out onto the property and gone on a hike to have class. Or, you know, just gone on a hike right off campus to have class. And I think utilizing the space that you have around you to engage students in the material they're learning is very important for the happiness of the students, which makes them more invested in learning. But I think sitting in a four-wall classroom with a whiteboard every day, all day for different periods, just, it takes a toll on the head. And I think it would be great to see classes that took their space outside of a classroom with four walls.
Tim Fish: Yeah. Yeah. Either somewhere inside or somewhere completely out in the community, right? There's a school we've worked with called, and they do something called the city is our campus. And there's a whole lot about getting out, getting into the city, which is super interesting.
Oh man. All right. So we got to wrap this thing up, but I could talk to both of you all day long. I love this idea of where we've been headed and what we're thinking about. So tell me what kinds of things would you, when you come back 30 years after you graduate and you return to Midland, what one or two things do you hope has never changed? And what maybe one spot, where do you want to go on campus 30 years from now and be like, and sit right there? What's going to be that magic place that you want to return to, do you think?
River Peace: There are so many places, I mean, there's so many memories that I've made already, just my year and a half being at Midland, but it's hard to choose one.
Tim Fish: I'm thinking you want to go out to the eggs and harvest the eggs with your hands freezing, River.
River Peace: I mean, I think I would love to come back and come to the creek. I've made a lot of memories in the Alamo Pintado. That's what we call our little creek that flows next to our campus and flows throughout the 2,500 acres. I've hiked to certain spots and swum in pools that it's made with all of my friends. It's just such a magical river. I couldn't imagine Midland without it.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: I was also, there's, by lower yard where I live, the creek flows right by lower yard and there's a spot on the bank with this massive fallen tree that has been kind of split up into different logs and one of the logs is just massive and hollowed out in the middle and you can just lay down inside of it and there's a hole in the top that you can see the sky through and it's shaped like a heart. And yeah, I love that place. But there's also a couple swings scattered around campus and some valleys. And I think it would be cool to see those still in use by the students.
Tim Fish: Yeah, that's really cool. And it sounds like if 20 years from now you get an email that says, at Midland, we've decided to allow students to have their phones and computers at any time. We're installing a whole lot of new Wi-Fi. I imagine you would be like, no!
River Peace: I would be pretty mad.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Yeah, I'd be heartbroken.
Tim Fish: Which is so classic. You have both been so wonderful. Thank you so much for your time, for your energy, for your answers. And thanks for helping us all imagine what school can be and what's really important when we think about school.
River Peace: Yeah, thank you, Tim. I really appreciate it.
Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada: Thank you for having us. Yeah.
Tim Fish: It's been a real pleasure. Take care.