Surf's Up Costa Rica

FOURTEEN STUDENTS went on a 12-day expedition to Costa Rica in summer 2022 as part of a Surfing, Service, and Leadership Program trip sponsored by the Connected Learning Department.

Accompanied by humanities teacher Cory Cramer and chair of the Connected Learning Department Devon Ducharme, the purpose of the trip was to provide all students — no matter their skill at surfing – with an opportunity that combined surfing, travel, and service to the world.

“Connected Learning at St. George’s has an outward-facing look,” Ducharme said. “There’s so much incredible learning that comes within the classroom. One of the perks of having a Connected Learning Department is that we can bring that education outside of the walls of the classroom and put it into practice in real and profound ways.” 

Landing in Costa Rica to make a difference

Students traveled to Costa Rica and met up with partners from the nonprofit organization Outward Bound Costa Rica. Dragons had “beach school,” where they learned how to be safe in the surf zone, and enjoyed their first surf session at Playa Dominicalito. Summer is the good surf season in the South Pacific, according to Cramer, with 16- to 17-second swells and more powerful waves — almost double those around Second Beach.

“It was a fair number of students’ first time surfing at all,” said Cramer. The group was split in two based on experience and visited different beaches to match skill level throughout the trip, he added.

During their stay, students divided their time between surfing the waves and working on a community service project where they helped design and paint two 40-foot murals with themes of education and the environment at a community center for the children of Dominicalito, a small town on the west coast of Costa Rica. The project was part of a long partnership between Outward Bound and the community center, which will eventually provide access to computers, free day care for local toddlers, and a community meeting space.

While students painted, they practiced their Spanish-speaking skills with the local children as well as took to the field for some friendly games of soccer.

“They just formed a really fun bond with our students in their break times,” Cramer said of the local children. “That was a special moment.”

Cramer said the goals of the surf leadership program are for students to become better leaders and stewards of the shoreline, better surfers, and to gain a greater understanding of individuals’ impact on a larger group or the larger world.

“This trip really delivered in spades on all of those,” said Cramer. “The waves were more challenging and more consistent than we are used to, allowing everyone to develop as surfers. Everyone there got to push themselves as a leader.”

Leaders of tomorrow

Cramer was an Outward Bound instructor in his youth, so he knew the organization’s curriculum and based St. George’s Surfing, Service, and Leadership Program on it. The idea is to give students transferrable lessons and skills they can bring back to campus and home, such as better group cohesion and personal development.

“There are a million programs in the world that will take you surfing all sorts of places over the world,” Cramer said. “But knowing as we did that Outward Bound shared the philosophies that we wanted to teach our kids was great.”

Students talked about different styles of leadership, such as directive and consensus building, and put them to real use.

“That’s really the core of what we try to bring to our leadership curriculum here,” said Cramer.

“That as a leader, your first responsibility is to the rest of your group and that everyone always has a role to play in supporting leadership and displaying leadership.”

And St. George’s will see the impact of that leadership from the returning students, according to Ducharme.

“We’ll have a group of leaders on campus because they really grew a lot as leaders while they were on the trip,” Ducharme said. “Most students came to see Costa Rica or to surf big waves, and [for] every student at the end of the trip, the biggest moment for them happened when they were meeting kids in a town or connecting with a local community member. They loved the waves, but that was an aftereffect whereas it was a driving force for them to sign up. That connection to the greater world is the Connected Learning.” 

<< Teddy Orthwein ’24 kept a log of the wildlife they encountered throughout the duration of the trip. A sketch of the animal was on one page while the subsequent one was filled with a variety of fun facts. These facts logged by Teddy included a wide range of information such as migration patterns, diet and anything else he thought would be fascinating to share with the group.