Students at the Cape May County Special Services School have the chance to experience "life-based" learning through the school's Outdoor Experiential/Leisure Education, or OXE/LE, program.

The program has been part of the school's curriculum since 1985, and in 1993, was honored by Princeton University as an "Outstanding Program of the Year."

Gina Lanza is head of the OXE program and along with her aide, Joyce Morgan, the pair has made the community of Cape May County part of their "classroom."

Students take excursions into the community where many local businesses, such as Uncle Bill's Pancake House, Mousetrap Bowling and Morey's Piers have welcomed students as they learn social and life skills.

Lanza, who has been teaching at the Special Services School for 30 years, attended the Minnesota Outward Bound Wilderness program in 1978 when she graduated from college. Many of the lessons Lanza learned there she's incorporated into the OXE program.

"I knew after Outward Bound that I eventually wanted to take these types of experiences and in some way develop them for special populations like the students at Special Services," Lanza said. "I spent some years directing summer camping programs for special populations and incorporated aspects of what I'd learned at Outward Bound. I also began to learn a lot about the value and need of recreation for the disabled."

Lanza said when she started at the Special Services School in 1978 she was "overwhelmed" by the social/emotional and recreational needs of her students. She began initiating experiential activities into the classroom on a weekly basis and offered a camping and wilderness trip once a year. In 1984, Lanza received a Master's degree in Experiential Education from Mankato University in Minnesota with an emphasis on leisure education for the disabled.

During that sabbatical year, Lanza also visited places that had been doing experiential learning with the disabled such as Breckinridge Outdoor Education Center in Colorado, the Vineland Health Sports for the Handicapped Center in Minnesota, an experientially based farm in Holland and Beitestolen in Norway, where health sports for the handicapped was originally developed.

When Lanza returned to Cape May County in 1985, she wrote a grant proposal to initiate the OXE program for the Special Services School which included money for equipment, community trips and her classroom aide.

"The OXE program enhances and supplements the classroom experience and stands alone as a program that develops social, recreational skills as well as environmental appreciation and knowledge," Lanza said. "I feel this adds great quality of life for the students. It also addresses the vocational needs and future transitional needs, as the community becomes part of the classroom. The community actually is our classroom and students learn to function more confidently outside the school setting. We take trips to not only businesses but the County Park and zoo, Cape May Point State Park and so much more."

Lanza and Morgan continue to take workshops throughout the state to help incorporate experiential concepts into their teaching. In addition to the excursions, there are activities in the classroom that promote social skills, such as games and an annual Valentine's Day Dance that involves the entire school.

"Our goal is to help students develop the skills they will need to function both inside and outside the school," Lanza said. "Our most recent project was our habitat garden, which was designed and implemented by the students. Students planted plants to attract hummingbirds and butterflies and the first season, which was this past spring, they got immediate results as they got to see first hand monarch butterflies as they became chrysalises and hatched."

Students also give back to the community by offering to help plant dune grass, gardens, clean beaches and roads. They learn recreational skills by going golfing, bowling and kayaking and environmental awareness comes from hiking and visiting local nature centers.

Lanza said the best part of her job it to teach something she truly believes in and enjoys.

"It's a privilege and an honor to be able to have a chance to set up experiences that will benefit this special population of students," Lanza said. "The experiential approach empowers students to take more responsibility for their own learning and growth and it not only adds to their quality of life but to mine as well."

Please feel free to contact via email Debra Rech at The Press
or
Gina Lanza, Teacher of OXE

Copyright, 2007, South Jersey Publishing Company t/a The Press of Atlantic City