Wilderness Skills Homeschool Program
The Wilderness Skills Homeschool Program aims to give children and teens experience in nature, teaching them valuable skills and getting them excited about learning, while also guiding them towards a better understanding of themselves and their own potentials. The skills that Carmen and Matt specialize in are ancestral skills that bring us into a closer relationship with the world around us and do wonders for one's sense of self-reliance and self-esteem. Just a short list of some of the skills taught are: fire-by-friction, pottery from local clay, basket weaving, bows and arrows, stone tools, natural dyes and paints, ancient hunting techniques, animal processing and hide tanning, nature awareness, wild edible and medicinal plants, natural containers and utensils, lost-proofing, shelter-building, and much more. While all of these skills may not be fit into one semester, each semester is different in order to incorporate such a wide variety of skills. The foundational skills of the program are the basic survival skills: how to provide oneself with shelter, water, fire, and food. Other skills taught branch off of this foundation. Group wanders through the wilderness areas around Mt. Victory are often embarked upon, and students learn about the flora, fauna, and tracks encountered along the way.
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With training in this program, and sufficient self-motivation and dedication to practice the skills taught, students will be able to survive in the wilderness with no gear. But on a deeper level than just the practical aspect of survival is the feeling of connection to the natural world that students gain through these hands-on skills. This program strives to give students a great appreciation of nature for all the things that it gives us that are essential for our very survival. With a feeling of direct connection to nature comes a deeper connection to oneself.
Carmen and Matt practice an Apache discipline called "coyote teaching," where answers to questions are not just thrown out to children. Instead, both teacher and student embark on a learning journey together, learning much more in the process than was ever asked in the original question. They put the "quest" in "question" and the "search" in "research." One example might be if a student sees a bird and asks what it is, instead of answering outright, they will help the student look it up in a field guide. This way the student remembers the bird much better than if the answer were easily handed to them. They also learn how to use a field guide to then learn about other birds they find. |
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Part of this program is learning the proper use and care of tools. Students will be instructed in the safe and proper use of knives, saws, and machetes for various projects, with parent permission.
Carmen and Matt were trained by and also are instructors for world-renowned survivalist and tracker, as well as New York Times bestselling author, Tom Brown, Jr. They highly recommend to parents to have their kids read, or read to their kids, any books he has written. "The Tracker" is a good one to start with since it was his first book and is about how he learned these skills as a boy from an Apache elder. Carmen and Matt learned most of what they teach, along with their teaching style, from Tom. They took many classes at his school, and each did his Caretaker Program, where you build a primitive shelter and live in it for a year while putting into practice all the skills that one learns at the Tracker School. They went on to become instructors there for many years. They also have taught at numerous summer camps that specialize in wilderness survival, tracking, and nature awareness, getting the opportunity to work with all ages. They moved to St. Croix after 7 years of teaching survival classes there and falling in love with the island. They began Caribbean Earth Skills when they moved there in 2012.
Carmen and Matt were trained by and also are instructors for world-renowned survivalist and tracker, as well as New York Times bestselling author, Tom Brown, Jr. They highly recommend to parents to have their kids read, or read to their kids, any books he has written. "The Tracker" is a good one to start with since it was his first book and is about how he learned these skills as a boy from an Apache elder. Carmen and Matt learned most of what they teach, along with their teaching style, from Tom. They took many classes at his school, and each did his Caretaker Program, where you build a primitive shelter and live in it for a year while putting into practice all the skills that one learns at the Tracker School. They went on to become instructors there for many years. They also have taught at numerous summer camps that specialize in wilderness survival, tracking, and nature awareness, getting the opportunity to work with all ages. They moved to St. Croix after 7 years of teaching survival classes there and falling in love with the island. They began Caribbean Earth Skills when they moved there in 2012.
