I spent my childhood and early adolescent years on Waldron Island. My family moved from Massachusetts to Waldron the summer I turned five, and I lived on Waldron until I left to attend Orcas Island High School for my sophomore year.

I have too many positive memories to recount them all. The consistent feeling of having access to a teacher for 1:1 assistance in small class environments was something I took completely for granted. Being given the license to be yourself and truly encouraged to imbue your personality and character into school projects. Finally, but probably most memorably, the absolutely incredible field trips that we were able to experience with such small classes. When I was eleven I went on a two-week trip to Costa Rica, at twelve spent three weeks road tripping down the Oregon and California coast with classmates and parents, and then finally at thirteen embarked on an epic five-week trip around the Southwest exploring the Grand Canyon and other magnificent parks. I took all these things for granted as a child, but as I have matured I have become more and more grateful for these learning experiences and their profound effects on me.

I had a number of teachers throughout my years in the Waldron School, including the fantastic part-time instructor, Brett McFarland.  Brett had an especially large impact on my interest in the sciences and physics in particular, and was always devising hands-on, practical applications for concepts and theories that imprinted them effectively in my brain. I remember taking high school Physics 101 and feeling like it was a refresher course for large chunks of the semester as so many of the concepts were not new to me due to Brett’s passionate and creative instruction.

Waldron is inherently rustic, puts you closer to the elements, and by virtue of this forces one to be present. This was before technology had made inroads to our collective attentions to the extent it has today, and before this became a topic d’jour and a vogue thing to strive for. Growing up there as a child, I remember times of elation and joy in nature and at times I truly felt like a mini swashbuckling adventurer setting off into the woods at random angles to intentionally try and get lost (it’s actually hard to do when you eventually just run into a road or the beach). I also remember times of profound boredom sitting with my thoughts, watching an anthill for hours, or climbing tree after tree trying to find the tallest one. I read voraciously, formed bonds beyond friendship and bordering on kinship with the other children on-island, and all in all had a dirty, boisterous, amazing childhood. 10/10 recommend.

l spent my entire childhood on Waldron and attended the Waldron school from 1992 to 2001. Today I am a mom of two living in Portland Oregon. I often hope that I can give my children many of the experiences I had growing up on Waldron. 

School was the center of our lives as kids and the island is a special place. Life revolved around playing outdoors, special activities, such as the twice yearly school play and daily school routines.

At school we were encouraged to follow our own interests and get involved in in-depth projects. Learning was often connected to experiences outside the classroom including a few week long field trips each year. This, along with visiting artist teachers who came for a week at a time to teach about their culture, started my love of travel and learning about different places and people. One of my most vivid memories is learning how to sail in small boats with just myself and a classmate in the boat around age ten. All these experiences made me a more independent and adventurous person throughout my life. Learning about and appreciating the natural environment around us was also an important part of the curriculum that made a lasting impact. 

I went to the Waldron school for all 8 primary grades. My main teacher was Mary Weaver but I also was taught by Lizanne Magraw, Annette Rees, Ms Tipton and Ms Schul.  This was from 1957 to 1965 (approx) It was a wonderful learning and community experience. Through the school workbees and school plays (two a year) I got to know many people in the community that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I super enjoyed the plays— they were high points of my childhood. 

Because of the small class size I got a lot of individual attention and this led me to interesting projects such as the history of making paper. It helped ease my progress in math which was hard for me. We also had reading aloud time which introduced me to many excellent books and was a bonding experience with other students. Being able to go outside and play on the swings and bars was fun and invigorating as well as walking to and from school. It gave me a strong body. I feel the Waldron school prepared me to be resourceful (I saw the adults around me living that way) and kept my curiosity alive. It also really nurtured my creative side. I would highly recommend it as a place for children to learn. 

I had a Waldron childhood, and one of its enduring effects has been a deep sense of place. As our children approached school-age, we prioritized a move back to Waldron. We wanted our kids to grow up close to the reality of the physical natural world. We wanted them to know all their neighbors, human and otherwise. We wanted them to experience the independence and freedom of exploring an island that is safe and accessible to a kid on a bike or on foot. We wanted to offer them a place full of natural interest instead of advertising. We wanted to let them be kids as long as possible.

For the most part, these goals have worked out. Covid threw a wrench in things, so they haven’t gotten to do as many cool school field trips as I remembered from my youth, but we’re getting back into the swing of it: this spring the middle school is going to WA DC with the Shaw island eighth-graders; there’s a Seattle trip in the offing; the middle school spent five days doing creative stuff at Centrum in Port Townsend; and the last couple of years the kids have started the school year with a night on Canoe Island, where they got to mingle with the Shaw school, doing a lovely program French Camp people run there. This year the school has done more on-island exploration as well — in addition to beach days for crab carapace data collection (science) and waterfront (learning to kayak and sail), kids have done “personal projects” with community members — our daughter sewed a dress with a local mentor, and now both our kids are working with another local mentor to create tiles, which we intend to install as we build our house.

As is common among the Waldron set, ours can split wood or handle a small boat, but quickly get exhausted shopping. They can name common birds and plants, but would recognize few brands in a mall. Lately my daughter has been walking to school instead of biking, “to take a minute in the sunshine on the way to school.” In the absence of a culture of distraction, they learn to cope with their own minds.