WEBB Magazine excerpt: Webb Today Unbounded Days

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WEBB

Webb is unbounded. Education and discovery extend across disciplines, outside classrooms and beyond campus to encompass Southern California. It’s part of Webb’s heritage: Thompson Webb founded the school with an unbounded spirit, and math and biology teacher Ray Alf, perhaps Webb’s most influential faculty member, championed unbounded creative thinking at the young school. Today the unbounded spirit imbues learning at Webb, from cross-disciplinary studies and student-driven education to travel opportunities around the world.

Webb’s biennial Unbounded Days program embodies this spirit, presenting over two dozen classes that combine the school’s intentional course design and student-driven learning with the educational, cultural and natural resources of the entire region.

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nbounded thinking is sprinkled throughout the curriculum,” says Director of Experiential Learning Sally Mingarelli, “but this is a real honoring of our mission statement.”

Unbounded Days honor Ray Alf, too.

The spark for the series of three-, four-and five-day classes that go beyond traditional academics came from Robert A. Hefner III ’53. Alf served as a lifelong mentor to Hefner, and as Head of Schools Taylor Stockdale recalls, Hefner wanted to inspire Webb students as Alf had inspired him: by encouraging creative, unbounded thinking. Together he and Stockdale developed a vision for “a meaningful program in which students could go beyond the regular day-to-day program and engage in some hands-on discovery learning in which they were passionate,” Stockdale says, and Hefner’s generous gift to The Webb Schools helped bring that idea to life.

This year’s Unbounded Days program takes place in February, the culmination of almost a year of planning.

Faculty begin brainstorming course ideas by looking to the program’s goals, says Mingarelli: “to encourage students to consider who they are and what they can achieve.” She helps teachers from different departments work together to create interdisciplinary courses that approach topics from new perspectives. “A lot of unbounded thinking happens by faculty first,” Mingarelli says. Webb’s recently reshaped

curriculum emphasizes the potential of both off-campus learning and partnerships with institutions in the Los Angeles region. Webb faculty conceptualize their courses with this in mind, she explains. “We want to take advantage of Webb’s unique position to connect students with the richness of culture and education that Los Angeles has to offer, so we have a very expert faculty in terms of designing experiential learning.”

Take just one of the unbounded program’s 28 courses this year: Cinematic Los Angeles. The course introduces students to buildings, landmarks and neighborhoods they may have seen on the silver screen—sometimes standing in for places wildly divergent from their actual context. The course, though, has the potential to go beyond that; to interrogate questions of social and cultural geography and markers of identity. Students may consider why we think of certain attributes when we think of a poor or wealthy neighborhood, or what architectural design elements have come to be used as cinematic shorthand to denote certain times or places.

Of course, faculty consider student interests as they design their courses. Although each student enrolls in just one Unbounded Days course, they each select six courses, in order of interest.

When the final course rosters are released in November, students meet with their Unbounded Days course instructors several times. Student input “informs the last three months of course design,” Mingarelli says. “Teaching and learning can be so much more dynamic than it used to be.”

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This year’s Unbounded Days includes 28 courses:

3-Day Courses The Amazing Race Animatronics & Storytelling The California Landscape & the Artist California Women’s Activism Then & Now Catalina Island: History, Science & Culture Cinematic Los Angeles Climate Change & Catastrophe Compose Yourself!

Ghost Hunting & Divinations Good for the Body & Soul

LA Multicultural Adventure Food is the entre to some of Los Angeles’ vibrant communities in this course – Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Korean. In between noshes, students try everything from calligraphy to card games, from the San Gabriel Valley to metro L.A. Unbounded Days is an opportunity for students to understand that, as Mingarelli notes, at Webb “the walls of your classroom encompass an entire county.”

SoCal Marine Scene: Snorkel, Surf & Science The essential elements of the SoCal lifestyle – sun, sand and surf – meet

Investing: Strategies for Success

the science that underlies the laid-back landscape. “In our courses we’re

Keeping Music Alive in Your Life

teaching students the skills and the knowledge to tie together different

LA Multicultural Adventure

disciplines,” Mingarelli says.

Learn to Sail Notes from the Cultural Underground

Virtual Reality

Science Fiction: Worlds Beyond Imagination

Does giving form to an idea make it real? Beyond creating virtual environments

SoCal Marine Scene: Snorkel, Surf & Science

using Webb’s VR technology and exploring the idea of theme parks – real

Survival Skills 1.0

virtual environments – this course will examine the boundaries between lived

Things You Should Know How to Do

and virtual experiences. Mingarelli says faculty and advisors ask students to

Virtual Reality

consider both “diving into an existing passion or trying something new” when

4- or 5-Day Courses

considering their course selections… Virtual Reality may do both.

The Art of Video Games Bike Tour of the California Coast Canyoneering in Zion National Park Design Me in the Right Direction Not Muirley a Hike Optimizing Athletic Performance Public Art & Expression World War II: A Southern California Experience