Inside the forge during Project Period, students stand at anvils alongside two Proctor faculty members and a local blacksmith, watching a technique demonstrated, then attempting it themselves, then watching and iterating again.
This year's “Project Forge” built a three-piece fireplace set – a poker, a broom with a forged handle, and tongs – each piece shaped by hand over the course of the week, guided by local artisans. Right next door, BioFuel Monster Garage picked up where previous Project Period students had left off, fabricating a secondary heated fuel system for a truck already converted to run on diesel. In the recording studio, students laid down tracks, listened back, and decided whether a take was worth keeping. Proctor alum and musician Matt Nathanson '91 joined them remotely to talk about what it means to build a life in music. Out on Proctor's 2,500-acre campus, students moved between maple trees, collecting sap, running the evaporator, and, by Thursday, rotating through roles at the campus sugar house, where they explained the process to visitors – and bottled five gallons of Grade A syrup by Friday. On Cape Cod, a group competed in an adventure race – “Minute-to-Win-It” challenges, large-scale scavenger hunts, and days built around sports challenges, entirely without their phones. In Greenville, Maine, a different kind of immersion was underway as students stayed in rustic cabins in the Maine woods and joined a dogsled team.
These are just a few of the approximately 35 Project Period offerings this year, spanning community service, cultural immersion, wilderness exploration, and the acquisition of new skills. Some students arrived knowing exactly what they had chosen and why. Some chose based on something they had been wanting to pursue – a skill, a craft, or an experience – while others followed a faculty member they trusted, or a friend, into something unfamiliar. In either case, what evolved over four days – the highs and lows of a mixed-age group living and learning alongside each other for eight hours a day or more – was not simply a project-based learning “class,” but the formation of small communities. Those communities, multiplied across thirty-five projects, are part of how Proctor's broader culture gets shaped through programs like Project Period, Wilderness Orientation, community days, and Off-Campus Programs.
Project Period has operated at Proctor since the mid-1970s. While the projects have shifted with faculty and student interests and the realities of each passing era, the underlying commitment has remained: to carve out five days at the start of Spring Term, step outside the constraints of a balanced schedule, and ask students and faculty to immerse themselves together in either something that matters deeply to them or something entirely new. What also remains constant – and yet is different for every student – is what they discover about themselves along the way.
Another common thread was the quality of attention that became possible when students were not being pulled in six directions at once. Many projects built technology-free structures into the week to protect that attention. Research on active learning confirms what Proctor educators have known intuitively: students learn more deeply when they do the work themselves, immersed in the process – and when that process is genuinely challenging, even frustrating at times. Removing technology from the week created the conditions for sustained focus, for the discomfort of not having an immediate answer, and for the creativity that often follows.
In The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop describe what they call "Explorer mode" – a state in which students pursue goals they care about, take initiative in shaping their own learning, and view setbacks as part of the feedback loop rather than judgment of their ability. Their research also suggests that this kind of engagement not only builds skills but also shapes identity. Adolescents given sustained space to pursue something meaningful develop a clearer sense of who they are and what they are capable of – clarity that extends to their academic work, relationships, and willingness to take on a challenge. Project Period creates the conditions for that kind of discovery.
Across 35 projects and four intensive days, the ripple effect extends well beyond one week. Students return with greater confidence, new skills, and a clearer sense of themselves, and, as a result, the greater Proctor community is strengthened.
Thank you to all of our faculty for the energy and enthusiasm brought to this year’s Project Period, and to coordinator Morgan Salathe for her countless hours of organizing, planning, and supporting our project leaders.
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