Month: February 2024

The title of this post, “A School with Nature as a Textbook” sounds like a fairly modern notion, doesn’t it? Outdoor schools, Montessori Educational principals, Nature Preschools, and outdoor classrooms are things we tend to consider as new and innovative changes to “traditional” educational models involving cavernous halls filled with students listening to a lecture given by a professor, a teaching assistant, or even a recorded lecture or seminar.

What if I told you that the phrase “a school with Nature as a Textbook” was a phrase used by a Boston based newspaper to describe the Los Alamos Ranch School in the early 1900’s? Many of us know that the Montessori method has been around for “awhile”, but did you know that Maria Montessori opened the first Montessori School “Casa de Bambini” in Rome on January 6, 1907?

Here in the United States, our Los Alamos Ranch School and so many other similar schools came about because of a man named Colonel Francis Wayland Parker. He founded a school in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois in 1901. The Parker School (formally called the Francis W Parker School) is still in operation today as one of the premier educational facilities in the US.

According to Parker, “A school should be a model home, a complete community, an embryonic democracy.” The Francis W Parker School’s website states:

Since its founding, Francis W. Parker School has educated students based on a philosophy that aims to support their growth and development by making them aware of and responsive to the fundamental needs of society.

The school’s philosophy became known in the 1900’s as “the Parker Method”. Schools advertising this educational philosophy began to pop up all over, but the one that impacted Los Alamos was the San Diego Parker School. 100 year later, the school is still operating today and includes two more campuses, one a “lower” school for younger students and another that offers bilingual education.

When the Los Alamos Ranch School was no more than a spark of an idea in Ashley Pond’s mind, he was a guide and camp host at the then Pajarito Club, (more about that in a future post). During the summer of 1915, Pond hosted the Johnson Family at the Pajarito Club. Templeton and Clara Johnson lived in San Diego with their two sons Winthop and Alan. The boys had just begun attending the San Diego Parker School, which Clara Templeton had founded after being less than pleased with the educational opportunities then available to her sons. Pond was fascinated by Clara Templeton’s “progressive” educational program. He’d been longing to implement a similar program in New Mexico for years. Pond had grown up a “sickly” child and the turning point for him had been his parents’ decision to send him to a Western Ranch for the “healthful air”.

Winthrop Johnson would go on to graduate from the Los Alamos Ranch School eleven years after that conversation between his parents and Ashley Pond. Winthop’s father, Templeton Johnson, was an architect educated in Paris. He’d designed campus buildings for the San Diego Parker School with an open design where open sided classrooms were clustered around a central courtyard. That design is quite similar to much of the architecture we’re familiar with here in the Southwest. Designs that capitalize on the climate in order to create spaces that encourage collaboration.

The Parker School Method or the “Progressive” educational model emphasized health and outdoor education. Physical activity was seen as key to a child’s proper development. Working with the hands, limited book learning, group collaboration and small group instruction with an emphasis on individual learning needs and styles was key.

To our modern minds this sounds almost like a “duh” moment. A good number of great schools, (including our own district), from all grade levels and regions utilize “Socratic” learning methods that encourage students to learn from each other and from questioning not only the teachers, but everything, as a method of discovery.

In the fall of 1915, all of Ashley Pond’s children went to San Diego to attend the San Diego Parker School. This left Pond with a lot of time on his hands and a passion for his Ranch School ideals. The rest is history.

The black and white photos above are from the Francis W Parker School’s history and were obtained from their website here. I love these photos because they are so reminiscent of what we now think of as “Montessori”. However, they also very much represent the Parker philosophy of “making them (children) aware of and responsive to the fundamental needs of society”. These photos show students “playing” at running a store or shopping. It also appears that they are “playing” at doing laundry. But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. The Francis W Parker school acquired old dolls. In the photo, the students are laundering doll clothing so that it can be reused on refurbished dolls created from the pieces of old dolls and then resold to support the school!

This philosophy became critical to our Los Alamos Ranch School, but in a unique way. Instead of rehabbing dolls, the boys of the Ranch School were running a ranch. They grew what they ate and learned important lessons in architecture, animal husbandry, engineering, building, and surveying.

This closeness to nature and the ability to utilize “nature as a textbook” is still one of the things I love best about Los Alamos. As before, I give credit for photographs of the Ranch School to John D Wirth and Linda Harvey Aldrich as well as the Los Alamos Historical Society archives. Information about the San Diego Parker School and the Francis W Parker School can be obtained through their website links. And when you’re ready to join our community here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I love life in Los Alamos and I’d love to share that with you and your family!

As I was considering topics for this week’s post, I came across the following photograph.

I’m sure most of you will recognize the building. It’s probably safe to imagine that most of us have sat or stood or even danced around the rooms of Fuller Lodge. You really can’t mistake the rich wood tones, the distinctive French doors, or that fireplace.

What’s a bit fascinating is that at first glance it might seem as if this is a photo from the Manhattan Project era. Maybe a dance for the GIs and scientific staff. Except that the girls are dressed in the sort of “formal wear” we often associate with school dances. And… the boys look awfully young with their slicked back hair, neckerchiefs, and shorts!

This photo is of a Valentines Day Dance in 1941, which was oddly appropriate given we just said goodbye to Valentines Day this week. Honestly, my first thought centered on the girls. Who were they? Where on earth did they come from? Were they daughters of local families on the plateau? The answer might surprise you.

In the 1930s and early 1940s, the Brownmoor School for Girls operated out of four leased buildings at the Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe. We tend to think of the Bishop’s Lodge as a fairly high end hotel offering spa services, trail rides, and other amenities to entertain tourists.

Back then the literature suggested it was a boarding school that “appeals to those parents who desire for their girls a development of their abilities under sympathetic guidance, and the maintenance of high standards of work conduct.” In actuality, the Brownmoor School operated quite a lot like the Los Alamos Ranch School did.

The Brownmoor School was founded in 1931 by Justine Ames Browne and Mary Atwell Moore who went on to be directors of the school. Girls came from all over, but many of them were from ranching families throughout the South and Midwest. The usual academic classes like mathematics, history, science and language were offered. Each girl had a horse to ride and spent much of their time outdoors doing archery, badminton, tennis, skiing, and skating. Dancing, singing, drama, and something called “social training” were also included. Which is where the Los Alamos Ranch School came in.

As part of their social training, girls would have the opportunity to attend away parties, gatherings, and events as a way to gain social graces that were a big part of why they’d been sent to boarding school in the first place. Of course, the Los Alamos Ranch School had morphed into the Manhattan Project site prior to the Brownmoor School’s move to Scottsdale, Arizona. The girls also attended events at the La Fonda hotel. Former students of the school recall Santa Fe as a wonderful place to be at that time. Artists from all over the US were plentiful. The food was amazing and unique experiences happened every day. Such as being awakened each morning at 7 AM by a matron with a “tom-tom” in the hallway, a name also given to the school yearbook.

It’s amazing to think that even though we consider Los Alamos to have been “remote” or “in the middle of nowhere” back in the Ranch School days, there was still a connectedness in the region. If you’d like to read more about the Brownmoor School for Girls, check out this article in the New Mexican here. When you’re ready to join our community here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’d love to chat Los Alamos Real Estate with you!

In 2022, for the 3rd year in a row, Los Alamos was ranked as the #1 healthiest community in America by US News & World Report. Honestly, considering the crazy number of colds, flu like viruses, Covid mutations, and just bugs going around our town, I’m keeping my fingers crossed we can pull of a fourth win. Can you imagine what it’s like in communities not on the list of healthiest places to live? Of course, Los Alamos has always been of the healthiest places to exist. It’s why the Ranch School started in the first place.

In 1917, the Selective Service Act was created to draft men for WWI. Suddenly men around the country were being examined by doctors in a manner that allowed for the collection of a lot of data. What they discovered was that the United States had a bit of a health issue. We were a sickly nation of malnourished and under-conditioned people. One of the first responses was to create a public physical education program. Oh boy! PE class!

In 1916, over ten thousand cases of Polio (Infantile Paralysis) were reported. Young men had rheumatic fever, mononucleosis, lead poisoning, poor nutrition, and physical deterioration from lack of sunlight and poor air quality in smoggy, overcrowded cities. Some people never saw sunlight thanks to the smog! They rarely did physical activity indoors or outside.

In Linda Harvey Aldrich & John D Wirth’s book they give another important reminder, “Above all, however, it is important to remember that the Los Alamos Ranch School existed before the age of antibiotics, before modern pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tools, and before widespread public health measures governing waste disposal, pollution of air and land, and the safety of food and water.”

Both Ashley Pond and AJ Connell had grown up as “sickly” children. Connell openly told people that he felt a desire to help these boys physically because nobody had known how to do that for him. The Los Alamos Ranch School brochures specifically assured parents that they accepted “sickly boys” who were “below par”. The program sent weekly progress reports home to assure parents their sons were increasing in health. For the first few years, boys would come for a month or two and go home. Then they started only remaining at home for the three months of summer. They were healthier in Los Alamos and it isn’t difficult to imagine why.

The criterion that US News & World Report uses to determine their ranking of healthiest communities focuses on things like equity of opportunities, infrastructure, education, housing, and environment. Since the time of our healthy Ranch School, other cities and regions have benefitted from environmental guidelines and laws as well as widespread advancements in hygiene. And yet, even after all of those modern improvements, we’re still a healthier place to live. How cool is that?

Now, Los Alamos Ranch School did have a firm policy of not taking any students with active cases of Tuberculosis. Several of the boys had previous experience with TB, but were certified as “cured” prior to being accepted as students. At that time, it was possible to use a chest X-ray to determine if a case of primary tuberculosis was healed. At that time, the patient was considered not contagious and many people did not ever reach the point of secondary tuberculosis.

Most of the boys at the Ranch School were there because of asthma. It almost seems strange to think that an asthmatic would come from near sea level to this altitude with our average pollen and dust count, add a dollop of horse dander and hair, tons of other random animal and environmental allergens, and somehow this helps their condition?

Just when I think this must be wrong, I recall AJ Connell’s almost rigidly structured schedule. The students came from lazy, inactive, overfed, indulged lifestyles. They were introduced to a healthy, active lifestyle full of good nutrition, emotional and psychological and peer support. Then they spent four years making this a daily habit. Of course they’re likely to never have issues with asthma again. At this same time, they’re at the perfect age for building an immune system and toughening their bodies. Plus, AJ. Connell just didn’t believe in sickness. He believed in mind over matter!

It seems that in the end, as with most things in Los Alamos, it was education that won out. AJ Connell kept up with the latest medical advances in health, fitness, nutrition, and treatments. He always wanted more information and then used that to improve his program. Just as this town has been doing ever since.

When you’re ready to reach out and become a part of this community, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl who loves to talk about Los Alamos history, housing, and the wonderful things planned for our future. I’d love to chat real estate in Los Alamos with you!