Academics
The academic program at Aspen Achievement Academy is designed to complement the therapeutic objectives of the program and promote positive learning experiences. The outdoor classroom provides a diverse physical setting that allows students to learn geology by studying rock strata and fossils, astronomy by looking into the clear night skies, and biology through study of local plants and animals.
In addition to making learning interesting and fun, this "hands-on" experiential approach facilitates positive personal growth while enabling students to connect knowledge from books with real-life experiences.
The Aspen curriculum focuses on English, Social Studies, General Science, and Physical Education. To receive credit, students must complete written educational modules and experiential activities.
Education Curriculum Description
Aspen Achievement Academy is a treatment program that is committed to guiding students and their families toward internalizing principles and developing skills that facilitate positive personal growth. This is accomplished through the use of experiential education, metaphor, and therapy in an outdoor setting.
We are licensed by the Utah State Department of Licensing to operate as an Outdoor Youth Program. Our efforts are primarily directed at helping students develop positive attitudes toward learning, and helping them choose goals that have meaning and relevance to their lives.
The wilderness experience acts as a major catalyst in initiating the therapy process. Education provides direction for the wilderness experience and is designed to give structured support to therapy. As the program now exists, education objectives complement the therapy program and are strictly bonded to the experiential education philosophy. The curriculum is comprehensive and intense, and features academic subject areas that were chosen to facilitate therapeutic objectives.
Aspen Achievement Academy operates under a continuous enrollment system, which allows students to enter the program at any time. One of this system’s many benefits is that new students enter a group that is already grounded and stable, and which includes students who have been here for various periods of time, who have already "bought into" the program, and who can provide positive peer modeling.
A student's first experience with academics begins immediately. Students who are new to the program begin their academic work with lessons titled "Wilderness Fundamentals” and “Primitive Skills”. These lessons are designed to teach skills that deal with personal safety and care, with particular focus on developing a strong survival attitude and problem solving abilities. Students are expected to complete these activities within the first few days. At that point they will move into the academic activities with the rest of the students in the group. Daily academic activities require no prerequisites so a student may enter the academic program with the rest of the group at any time.
During their time in our program, the students will complete 15 educational activity booklets. To facilitate group discussion, all students work on the same activity during a particular academic session. This is accomplished by having students who have just completed the "Wilderness Fundamentals" and "Primitive Skills" modules go directly to the activity on which the other students are working. When the final academic activity is completed by the student group, those who are graduating will have completed all of the activities and the entire curriculum. The remaining students will complete all previous (and heretofore uncompleted) activities that were undertaken prior to their entry into the educational activity program.
It may be of some interest and use to explain how the academic program has been tailored to complement the therapy program and give structure to the wilderness experience. The wilderness experience is structured by creating a curriculum that utilizes the diverse physical setting available to us. This setting includes clear skies for studying astronomy, and a diverse geological landscape that is unequaled anywhere else in the world.
One of the activities focuses on the survival instincts of animals – instincts that have allowed the species to continue, but which have also furnished a guarantee of extinction should conditions on earth change. On the other hand, students learn, human beings are not burdened with a multitude of survival instincts, and therefore must learn behaviors that will guarantee their continued survival. Therapeutically, these lessons can be utilized to show the importance of education, home, and the role of parents in raising children.
With its emphasis on experiential activities, our curriculum, teaches personal responsibility and provides students with the opportunity to have a successful educational experience. Students graduate from Aspen Achievement Academy with a renewed sense of hope and enthusiasm for the learning process. This enables them progress to other learning environments with the abilities and confidence that are necessary for continued academic success.
