Fishing Club

Many of the great Woodward Academy activities originated from the passion of a particular staff member. The historic powerlifting program began as a weight lifting club, and the well-dressed drumline was started in a general music class. One of the next great things to happen at Woodward Academy could be the Fishing Club.
   
Woodward Academy is surrounded by rural land, including some small creeks. Luke Corrick, a Group Leader on campus, started taking some of his primary students fishing to help generate a relationship with them, spend time outdoors, and to teach them about a passion of his that he was first exposed to as a youth. He decided to take this casual weekend activity with students on his dorm, and open it up to more students in the form of the Fishing Club.
   
As the Club got underway, he started having aspiration of doing with the program. In February, he started emailing different tournament organizations all over Iowa. His first response was from Steve Miller from Oxbow Bandits Bass Club in Sioux City, Iowa, who said that he’s love to have some guys come and compete in their youth tournament they hold at Blue Lake every year.
   
On June 3rd, the Woodward Academy team caught 9 total fish on that day, with two of them at the legal length of 15 inches. For their first tournament, they finished 5th out of 10 total high school teams and represented the Academy well. Corrick hopes to get the team in one more tournament this summer and already has ideas on how to expand the Fishing Club for next year.

World of Work // Extracurricular Activity

The World of Work (known as W.O.W.) extracurricular, after school activity, is the longest running at Woodward Academy and provides students a career building curriculum that will help them not only obtain a job, but to keep it. Joel Porter, WA Treatment Operations Coordinator has organized W.O.W. for over a year and fully understands that a career building after school activity lacks some of the appeal that other activities have. “Most of them [the students] typically start out being unhappy to be in W.O.W., but I try to make it fun for them. I try to keep things laid back and allow the students to guide the direction of our discussions. After it’s over, they almost always say it was their favorite because of how helpful it was for them.

World of Work follows the same 8-week schedule that other extracurricular activites follow. Porter has developed a curriculum that focuses on soft skills such as teamwork, communication, attitude, networking, professionalism, problem solving, and critical thinking. He believes that “the lack of skills like these is what contributed to many of our students being placed with us,” and that taking a course like this can equip students moving forward.
   
The majority of students who take the W.O.W. class have little to no work experience, but are typically older (16-18 years old), and more mature, making the content immediately applicable. “All of the soft skills we discuss are familiar to them (aside from networking), but they have never really thought of them from the perspective of how these skills can help them in the workplace.” Porter stresses that these skills are what employers are looking for when hiring, especially candidates with not a lot of work experience.
   
Beyond the soft skills development, the class also accomplishes a number of concrete tasks that include setting up an appropriate email account, building a resume, and practice filling out job applications. Over the past year, Porter has included several guest speakers as regular additions to the curriculum that
include discussions about Job Corps and other post-secondary options.
   
For the first time, Porter co-taught the W.O.W. extracurricular with Educational Liaison Aric Rush. As someone who helps students transition away from Woodward Academy, he was as a natural candidate to help with post-secondary options. His portion of the class included discussions about testing (ACT, Compass, etc.), filling out FAFSA forms, how to navigate a college website, and other aspects of post-secondary life such as campus housing, tuition, and the overall college experience. At the end of the course, students participate in mock interviews and receive a certificate of completion. The course is always a huge success and a great starting point for students moving on to the next stage of their life.

Gardening Extracurricular

Extracurricular activities are a great way for staff members to teach their areas of passion outside of the school day, and for students to be a part of some life long learning opportunities. For many people, summer time fun equals gardening. Spending afternoons in the sun with their hands in the soil is a great way to connect with the earth. Months later, your efforts are pulled from the ground and end up on your dining room table. For Ray Olson, teacher at Woodward Academy, exposing students to the finer art of gardening is a life skill worth exploring

Thanks to a $2,000 grant received from Whole Foods grocery stores, the gardening extracurricular was able to have a plentiful harvest this fall. With the money, they purchased some great gardening equipment and fencing, with the rest allocated toward landscaping. In all, they planted 9 different vegetables and have been reaping the rewards for weeks. With a lifelong agricultural background, Olson hopes to extend this extracurricular beyond the fall harvest. He noted that during the winter, students could do some indoor planting and learn more about weed identification, fertilization, and soil testing. He will also be exploring the possibilities of additional grants next year.

Woodworking Project -- Entertainment Center

Last September, we did a post about the new woodworking extracurricular at WA. The post outlined the goals of the group that included students receiving hands-on experience working with table saws, miter saws, drills and routers along with a variety of other power tools. You can read that post by clicking here. The extracurricular has taken off since that time and they are currently in the process of renovating their workspace. The projects that they have completed have been impressive. They include book shelves, adirondack chairs, and most recently an entertainment center for one of the dorms (pictured). We'll have more on the woodworking extracurricular and their projects in the future.

Woodworking Extracurricular

After school extracurricular activities have started again this fall with a new set of interest oriented classes.  Running in nine week segments, the topics of the extracurriculars rotate based on which staff members are organizing them.  In the past, journalism, drama club, and sports such as volleyball have been offered, among many others.  One of the more ambitious and compelling groups this time around is woodworking.  Organized by Group Leader Don Teague, this extracurricular is providing hands on experience building a variety of projects.  He has also envisioned this nine week period as the first of four with the projects becoming more complicated moving forward.  Read more after the break.  

Extracurriculars End for the Season

Since last fall, the extracurricular activities at Woodward Academy have taken place after school, 4 nights a week.  This time around, the goal was to produce a "final product" that students could work towards while engaging in the various activities.  Last Friday marked the end of this extracurricular cycle and each group was able to show off their products in the afternoon as other students viewed their presentations.  Read more after the jump to look at this year's events.

Art Extracurricular visits ISU's Design College

Fourteen students involved with the art extracurricular visited Iowa State University's Design College on February 1st.  They got a sneak peek into post-secondary studio art classes of all types and were able to see first hand how college students are taking the route of career artists.  

As a part of the visit, students viewed a demonstration by the Iowa State Guilders Union on glass blowing, which is pictured.  They also took a tour of the Design College and saw several different studios including those in architecture, graphic design, ceramics, painting, jewelry, and a print lab.  

The art extracurricular is an extension of the art classroom program at Woodward Academy, but focuses more on the vocational aspects of art making whereas the class covers similar topics but with a more academic approach to learning.  More updates and student works will be showcased in future posts.   

Extracurricular Activities...

According to students, one of the best aspects of our programming is the fact that the they are always busy and engaged with some type of activity. In other words, they're always doing something and too busy to worry about being delinquent. Four nights a week after school, students who are not participating in our athletic program go to an extracurricular activity of their choice. The activities change over time and offer a diverse set of interest oriented activities. This makes them fun for not only the students, but for the staff members involved as well.

Beyond being fun, students are learning applicable skills in each one of them. Currently, the listing of extracurricular activities include:

- Journalism - students learn skills in writing and photography
- Drama Club - recreating scenes based on the movie script from "The Sandlot"
- WOW (World of Work) - engages students in writing a resume and touches on filling out applications
- Art - taught by the art teacher, this is really an extension of the academic classes
- A.R.T. - not to be confused with art, A.R.T stands for Aggression Replacement Training