Category: Global Citizenship - New Summit Academy Costa Rica

Is a Gap Year for us?

6/8/2022

What if you were guaranteed immense clarity and direction just from taking a simple year off of school to travel abroad? What if it could propel you way farther than jumping straight into college? Would you do it without hesitation?

Danny Recio, Director and Founder of The Bridge Gap Program, took a gap year in South Africa after high school. It was during his time there where he had a “coming of age” experience and found his calling in working with people. All because of his time abroad, Danny went on to start gap year programs - a therapeutic option called The Bridge (a therapeutic community for young men) and a more traditional coed gap program (Si! Gap Program) in Costa Rica, guiding them along their own coming of age experiences.

In this episode of Success is Subjective, Danny joins Joanna to share his journey as he traveled as a young adult, exploring different cultures and how his gap year experience has stuck with him, even a decade later. Listen in for Danny’s insight on the impact the right gap year program can have on a young adult, possibly changing the entire trajectory of their life.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-118-making-the-most-of-your-young-adulthood/id1499891712?i=1000550592741

What You Will Learn

What it was like growing up and going to school in Costa Rica
Danny’s gap year in South Africa
How impactful and helpful taking a gap year can be
When Danny became interested in psychology
Danny’s experience in college in Costa Rica vs the U.S.
Danny’s insight on what can be really helpful for young adults as they navigate their identity and the world around them
How The Bridge Gap Program came about
Danny’s advice on goal setting
Connect with Danny Recio at his Bridge email or his NSA email

From Solos to SnapChat: Guiding Re-entry into a Technological World

5/9/2020

Martin Naffziger, M.Ed., and Dr. Heather Tracy, Ed.D., presented in early 2020 at the annual NATSAP conference. The topic? Once through wilderness, how do we guide students back into the realities of our technological world?

Dr. Tracy presented the latest research on the positive and negative effects of technology use as well as presented a framework for how to assess and discuss intentionally moderate use.

Martin Naffziger then outlined how New Summit Academy re-introduces technology into student lives in an intentionally gradual way using process-based scaffolding. Enjoy!

Academic Tour of NSA (2020)

4/26/2020

Fun in the Time of Corona

3/25/2020

At New Summit Academy, we are putting in Herculean efforts to keep our students and community safe and to maintain student engagement.

Academic classes and therapeutic groups are running as normal (though we have added additional therapeutic “check-ins for our students!), and all members of our community have come together as a family to create more opportunities for fun activities on campus.

Some recent projects include:

Organizing and holding basketball tournaments
Building a “cornhole” set
Constructing a graffiti wall for student artistic expression
Building a “ladder golf” game
Digging horseshoe pits
Holding evening campfires (and making s’mores!)
Creating Nature Art in Global Citizenship

Thanks to all of our community for your support and collaboration!

Developing Global Citizens at NSA

1/21/2020

NSA’s innovative Global Citizenship certification program engages our students in the investigation of eight facets of what it means to be a Global Citizen, including Human Rights, Social Justice, Digital Citizenship, and, this week, Diversity.

Our Spanish teachers guided students in learning about the global refugee crisis, and NSA hosted two special guests: Costa Rica’s Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a United Nations Refugee Agent, who each discussed local and global refugee issues.

This engaging day is just one small part in New Summit Academy’s efforts to develop our students into Global Citizens.

Global Citizenship Workshop on Gender Equality

10/21/2019

A few weeks ago we had one of our quarterly Global Citizenship Workshops.

This time we discussed Sustainable Development and how Gender Equality can help us reach it. Thanks to Juan Diego, our biology teacher, for organizing it.

"I wanted to show my students the true meaning of feminism and gender equality - allow them to discuss and understand its value, to not feel threatened by it."
- Juan Diego Rodríguez

AWARENESS
Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong…it is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideas.
- Emma Watson

RESPONSIBILITY
We do a great disservice to boys on how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.
- Chimamanda Ngozi

ACTION
Physical strength used to be the most important thing for survival. Today, we live in a vastly different world. The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes.
- Chimamanda NgoziLEARN

LEARN
It is always wonderful to align and interact with students as they venture - with open minds and a curiosity to learn more - into the “gray areas” of global citizenship.

TAKE AWAY
"Although we mainly focused on gender equality in this particular seminar, teachers were not limited to female vs. male but rather expanded the discussion to the broader societal messages about who we are expected to be based on our gender, how that makes us feel about ourselves, the systems that are set up to benefit one over another, and how we can all relate to some form of inequality. By empathically connecting with how they themselves might have been set up for failure in some way, and recognize underlying systems of oppression, students were able to “see” perspectives of “others” they had not seen (or had been too defensive to see) before."
- Heather Tracy

It’s rewarding to watch each generation become more and more aware, more complex, and hopefully more activated to make a difference.

NSA in Peru & South Africa!

9/16/2019

New Summit Academy continues to offer its students once-in-a-lifetime travel and immersion opportunities!

This past month, students and staff traveled to either Peru or South Africa, engaging with local cultures, performing community service, marveling at the beauty of these nations, and having some fun! Here are just a few of the activities that students experienced in their travels:

-Whitewater rafting the Apurimac River
-Learning how graffiti is used for positive social change
-Working in the Sacred Valley alongside the Amaru indigenous community
-Spotting hippos and rhino while on safari
-Hiking through the Andes on the Auzangate trek
-Exploring Machu Picchu

What a month for New Summit Academy!

Educating Global Citizens

6/27/2019

New Summit Academy’s mission is to empower students toward healthier lifestyles through processing experiences and solving problems to become more relationship-based, goal-driven, resourceful global citizens.

The goal of helping young men develop into global citizens has guided the development of many of the most impactful and memorable components of the NSA program.

These experiences of stepping outside of our comfort zones, asking intelligent questions while building critical thinking skills, and immersing in the world around us are all woven throughout NSA’s personal growth, academic, and experiential education programs.

Below are just a few examples of how we do this at NSA:

Building Connections and Serving our Community: All New Summit Academy students engage in service throughout their stay (in fact, it’s a requirement of our program!)

Students participate in reforestation projects, care for children at Hogar de Vida, provide activities for Retirement Home residents, and teach English classes to locals in Atenas.

Cultural Engagement: Each weekend, after having learned about the activity in their Spanish classes, our students immerse in the Costa Rican culture through experiences that include trips to museums, parks, festivals, tours of coffee and chocolate farms, and sports days in the park.

Global Citizenship Workshops: Eight times a year, students participate in teacher-led, experiential workshops that examine the facets of Social Justice, Human Rights, Interdependence, Ecological Stewardship, and more.

These facets then serve as lenses through which students approach their core classes for each quarter.

NSA Students Raise Funds for Caritas

3/11/2019

Caritas is a charitable organization located in the center of our small town of Atenas. With a shoestring budget, Caritas is somehow able to provide lunch to humble families every day, serving up to 60 plates of food to community members of all ages.

Our students and staff have been privileged to be able to volunteer for Caritas, helping to prepare and serve food and assist in clean up after meals. One of Caritas’ most daunting challenges is to source enough protein to provide balanced meals, as they lack a regular supplier and do not have a freezer to store the food donations received.

This fact struck our students during their volunteer efforts and they, alongside our staff members Miguel and Peter, decided to make a difference.

Senior students spent their Friday afternoons organizing and publicizing a fundraising concert – which they dubbed SummitFest – to take place on campus. Miguel led their efforts, starting an online fundraising campaign, and Peter led our students in preparing to perform for the show.
The turnout at the concert was fantastic. Staff brought in home-cooked food to sell, and students volunteered selling tickets, running the concessions, managing donations and jamming on stage for the crowd.

The students’ efforts paid off, raising over $2,000 for Caritas, which will be used to donate a deep freezer filled with food for the organization.

Global Citizenship in action! Great work, NSA students!

A New Year’s Reflection at New Summit Academy

1/1/2019

NSA's staff and students are all excited to begin another spectacular year and want to share a reflection of some of 2018's highlights:

8 Global Citizenship workshops, investigating student-chosen topics related to Social Justice, Diversity, Ecological Stewardship, Conflict Resolution, and more.

4 Homestay Picnics, thanking our dedicated and caring Atenas hosts for taking our students into their homes and making them a part of their families.

28 successful Aventuras, including Integrated, Recreational and International Aventuras to Peru and South Africa!

Hundreds of hours of community service at Hogar de Vida, with Osa Conservation, and in the community of Atenas.

New clubs driven by student interests including a Fishing Club and a Birdwatching Club.

Nearly 100 college acceptances, including outstanding schools like Tulane, Marquette, Trinity, Loyola of Chicago, Whittier, Juniata, and Eckerd College.

Over 1.1 million dollars in college scholarships offered thus far!

20 successful graduates of high school and/or the New Summit Academy Program, ready to take on the world with new skills and confidence!

Thanks to all members of our NSA family for your support as we look forward to an incredible 2019... Happy New Year!

New Summit Academy Costa Rica is a supportive boarding school and study abroad experience for high school males in grades 9-12.

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