Regional Intensive Trip

by Micah Manary

Buxton “shopped local” this year, with a “regional intensive” replacing the usual all-school trip (otherwise known these days as The Urban Intensive Trip). Students and faculty organized into groups to investigate the history, culture, environment, and structure of Williamstown and Berkshire County.

» The Arts group met with the

Williamstown Art Conservation Center, which renovates everything from the mural on a McDonalds to a 16th century geometry manuscript. » Ecology learned about the flora of our own Stone Hill, and met with a regional expert on which plants were edible and how to cook them—even making birch-bark tea and garlicmustard pesto for the whole school! » Mills studied the history of

Williamstown and North Adams through our local mills, from their original businesses to their current renovation and repurposed uses. » Indigenous Peoples learned about the history of the Mohican peoples who are native to what is now

Williamstown, and whose history has been mostly erased. » Hidden Systems got a tour of the local water-treatment plant and sewers, to understand the infrastructure that supports our town. » With policing being a huge issue nationally and locally after recent

WIlliamstown events, the Policing group met with the police chief, local activists, politicians, and victims to understand the issue in its complexity and totality. » Poverty looked at issues of local rural poverty, including the removal of a significant Williamstown trailer park after a hurricane.

» Farms looked at the robust history of farming in our area, and the

economics and logistics behind successful agriculture in an incredibly tough environment. While each group dove deeply into a different facet of Berkshire County, it became clear to all that even our small rural area has deep history, issues, and complexity. Students found amazing organizations right in our backyard that they would never have otherwise known about! One student says: “We didn’t need to travel to find issues of poverty, race, economics, education, and politics. Every issue we hear about in the news is seen here in Williamstown!” It was a great “trip,” if quite out of the ordinary, and helped the school reframe our own context in the area. Who knows, it was so rich we might even do it again in a non-pandemic year!

“WE DIDN’T NEED TO TRAVEL TO FIND ISSUES OF POVERTY, RACE, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, AND POLITICS. EVERY ISSUE WE HEAR ABOUT IN THE NEWS IS SEEN HERE IN WILLIAMSTOWN!”