Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kim Andersson said Dec. 10, the school department and others nationally have been getting more into place-based learning, or "beyond the walls of the schoolhouse." And Wiscasset schools, she said, are in an ideal place for this, both heritage and nature-wise, with the nearby historic buildings, working waterfront and hundreds of acres of trails and woods. “We don’t have  … to get on a bus and travel far to experience all these learning opportunities," Andersson said in the school committee meeting in Wiscasset Middle High School's library and live on YouTube.

Learning off-campus helps students work as a team, think critically and as citizens, and relate the topics to their lives, plus it energizes teachers, Andersson said.

“That doesn’t happen when you’re sitting at a desk with a worksheet.”

Andersson said Wiscasset’s school culture “has taken a beating” the last quarter century, from Maine Yankee’s closure and a resultant population drop, to high turnover in administrators. Place-based learning is an amazing experience for children and the adults, and can help them know they are lucky to learn here and work here, she said. Andersson then shared she envisions Wiscasset students learning on a tall ship in Wiscasset Harbor and, for top-achieving students, a semester at sea, on scholarship. Last spring, Wiscasset Newspaper shared a WMHS story on students' time with the Virginia on the waterfront. 

Committee member Jodi Hardwick commented in the meeting, her WMHS seventh grader, Baxter, 12, learned at Fort Popham Dec. 6, and later told her about the fort’s history. “So there are ripple effects to that placed-based learning: I’m learning, too, so that’s exciting," Hardwick said. 

Being able to frequently learn nearby is one of the good things about a small school, committee member Victoria Hugo Vidal said. “This would be really difficult to do if we were big.

"A lot of times we think of being a small school as a hard thing or a bad thing, but this is like, ‘Hmm. We can do stuff like this because we don’t have as many people to think about.'"

Chair Jason Putnam dedicated the night's meeting to Wiscasset’s Tim Flanagan, who died Dec. 6. Putnam noted Flanagan’s 40 years teaching at Wiscasset High School. “Condolences to his family,” Putnam said.

More coverage from the meeting will follow separately.