Capping the K-8 Journey
The 9-year FCDS journey from Kindergarten through Eighth grade is brimming with opportunities to build the academic, athletic, artistic, global, and character insights Foothill engrains in its students. Touching each of those goals is an annual year-end 8th-grade journey to Costa Rica.
For two weeks in April/May, the FCDS Class of 2011 whisked away to this far-off land to encounter differences in culture, life-style, language, and outlook, and to practice their Foothill character traits of respect, responsibility, and concern for others. They did so nobly, and returned with new perspectives on their class team, their world, and the world as a whole.
The consensus of student and staff participants was clear: the exposures were incredible, the insights deep, the service projects noteworthy, and the memories unforgettable.
The experiences compressed into 14 days were diverse, demanding, sometimes daring, and universally delightful -- except for the bugs and humidity. 
A day’s life in the culturally isolated village of Bri Bri introduced new language, new foods, new practices -- ranging from chewing cocoa beans to drinking from cups made of plucked leaves. The Turtle Station service project sent sentries of students on night beach walks in search of mother turtles, and helped rescue several batches of newly laid turtle eggs from poachers. A visit to the Veragua Rainforest introduced the lush jungles of Costa Rica and the dependence of animals on that ecosystem. Students here assisted Veragua guides in digging a frog pond and relocating plants in the middle of the rainforest in order to encourage more frogs to reproduce and increase the population of endangered amphibian species. Connecting with the FCDS-adopted school in Las Brisas, teaching the students American games like “Red Light, Green Light” and “Duck, Duck, Goose” and helping paint a classroom, fortified the value of dedication to service -- and also built confidence as Foothill 8th graders found themselves able to converse with students in Spanish, thanks to their K-8 FCDS Spanish lessons.
A home stay with a native Costa Rican family -- “Ticos” -- bolstered understanding of a different life -- one without Wii, TV, or computers, let alone fast food, malls, and our swirling lifestyles. Helping prepare unfamiliar dinners, joining in local games with the families’ children, milking cows, and living the quieter daily routine offered a fuller grasp of how varied our world can be.
In the final days, accommodations came nearer to home life: hotel life with gift shops and time for water-slide fun. But the highlights of this time of gentler housing contrasted sharply: exhilarating and daring zipline adventures through rainforest-canopy mists; spelunking through 20-inch apertures to dark, dank caves harboring 6-million-year-old fossils; plucking vegetables on a diverse 2.5-acre organic farm and preparing the evening’s meal from the harvest; churning across Lake Arenal to the Monteverde coffee country to view an entomologist’s collection of local “creepy crawlers;” accepting the dare of a mind-boggling Tarzan swing; and gaining beginning mastery of surfing across Playa Jaco waves to black volcanic-sand beaches.
How can the value of such an experience be captured? Away from home without parents or familiar surroundings or practices; immersed in foreign cultures; challenged in formidable pursuits; engaged in momentous service endeavors... these are rare -- and life-changing -- opportunities for 14- and 15-year olds. These fortunate Foothill Country Day School travelers walk across the commencement stage on June 16th wiser and forever united by their common adventure -- extended invaluably in their FCDS preparations for high school and beyond.
