CELC Finds New Home in Old School

The old school house at 28 School St., in Stony Creek has not been used as its originally intended purpose since 1980. A home to students since 1893, Branford’s Connecticut Experiential Learning Center is the first group to bring classroom learning back to this schoolhouse.

School co-founders Melinda Alcosser and Maria Mortali said moving classes from  this past September to the current room at 28 School St., was a good choice for their students. “We loved the idea that it was a school,” said Alcosser of the second-floor space the eight-student class utilizes.

While students spend part of their Monday to Friday school week indoors at the schoolhouse, most the learning of CELC the traditional schoolhouse walls.

First-year student Nick May, 11 of New Haven, said he really likes the hands-on teaching style of CELC. “Worthington-Hooker School,” where May came from, he said, “was a really sit-at-your-desk” type of learning environment.

The middle school students, ages 10-14 (grades five to eight) enrolled at CELC affectionately call their new classroom “HQ” or headquarters and often look forward to returning there for instruction after partial day trips for situational learning at various places around the area. Students have had class at various outdoor places along the shoreline including trails, parks, beaches and farms.

This year a learning theme for students is exploration and discovery. In the classroom, students have been journaling about their own passions and how those desires can lead to one’s life purpose; outside the classroom, students explore those passions, detailed the instructors.

Alcosser and Mortali were both teachers on the now-closed Whightwood School in Branford. Three years ago they founded CELC to continue teaching students, especially middle school-age students, in a unique way. “At this age,” said Alcosser, “kids can become lost. This brings them back to a place where they can be seen and heard.”

Thirteen-year-old Julia Farquharson from West Haven said she loves coming to CELC. “When I first met her,” Farquharson  said of Alcosser, “she was doing back flips off a dock.”

The energy and out-of-the-box style of learning is what keeps students like Farquharson engaged when they otherwise might not be in traditional school, explained the teachers. “It’s a passion Mari and I have,” said Alcosser, “to see young people empowered and encouraged.”

Ten-year-old Julia Spilman said she likes coming to CELC for many reasons including the out-of-classroom learning but said she really enjoys learning math right at her desk. “I remember leaving elementary school,” she shared “thinking there was only multiplication, subtraction and division. Currently, we are learning prime numbers, which I find fascinating.”

On the subject of math, we asked Mortali how CELC addresses teaching math given the public school instruction of traditional math curriculum paired with conceptual math. Mortali said in a large classroom, conceptual math sometimes doesn’t’ translate easily; at CELC the more targeted approach to teaching conceptual math has benefited the students greatly, she said.

What happens inside the old school house is something that should be seen by those interested. Through the month of March, to come by and check things out. Contact mandm@CTExperiential.org or call 203-215-2317 to attend.

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