FOR RELEASE: Thursday, April 19, 2007
Alumna's Work With At-Risk Teens Wins National Recognition
Deb Walter gives Alberto Ramirez tips to balance on an Indo Board. The board helps the user develop balance, coordination and increased leg strength while enhancing core fitness.
Coaches have long touted the life lessons their athletes learn while playing organized sports – teamwork, leadership, focus, selflessness, believing in oneself, caring for others. Deb Walter takes a similar philosophy way beyond the football field or softball diamond. She applies it to all students regardless of their athletic ability, emphasizing instead recreational activities to keep their bodies fit and their minds clear.
While they are learning techniques of kayaking, archery, fishing and mountain biking, these students at Crossroads Alternative School in Rogers are also learning how to get along in a world where they have struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, pregnancy and parenthood, criminal behavior and family neglect.
"At the ropes course (at NorthWest Arkansas Community College), we did an activity called the spider web," student Beatriz Cardenas recalled. "Our team had to come up with a plan for us all to get through the web without touching the strings. It was frustrating, but we learned to trust people we didn't know."
"I have learned that, in the workplace, if you don't get along with someone, you still have to get the job done," her classmate Alberto Ramirez explained.
State education standards require only one credit in physical education for a student to graduate from high school. Students sent to Crossroads in Rogers because they have not been able to make it in a traditional school are required to take P.E. all year, and Walter, their teacher, believes the skills they learn can make the difference between a productive life and one of poverty or incarceration.
Students who apply to attend Crossroads are interviewed and selected based on certain criteria and an alternative learning experience needs assessment. Whatever the reason, these students have not been successful at the traditional setting, and Crossroads provides the missing link for many of these children.
For many at the alternative high school and middle school, this is their last chance. If they don't make it at Crossroads, the opportunity for education is probably gone.
The University of Arkansas alumna takes to heart her role in helping such students. She recently won national recognition for her work.
In Baltimore last month, Walter was named secondary physical education teacher of the year by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, and she plans to use that platform to advocate for programs she believes help at-risk students succeed.
"They are awesome kids who have not had the support they need to be successful," Walter said. "They need their confidence built up so they can leave with the skills to make it, so they don't fall through the cracks again."
At Crossroads on the campus of the old Rogers High School, Walter uses "Project Adventure" curriculum – nothing traditional, no basketball, no dodgeball, no dressing out – teaching the students to get along with each other, respect their bodies, behave in a responsible manner and get a natural high from activity instead of a dangerous one from illegal drugs. The students can continue the recreational activities they learn in Walter's classes into their 70s and 80s and with their children and grandchildren, she believes.
No one is allowed to make fun of anyone else in Walter's classes, and by mid-semester the students feel comfortable enough with each other to chance falling on their faces or their behinds while honing their balance on an Indo Board, a flat, oval disk that sits precariously on a cylinder.
On a warm, windy afternoon in March, the students clipped pedometers to their waistbands to walk 3,000 steps around the track before playing on the Indo Board. Walter explained that this is her favorite time of year because the students have lost a lot of the bad attitudes and anger they had at the beginning of the school year.
Walter earned a bachelor's degree in kinesiology and a Master of Arts in Teaching Degree from the College of Education and Health Professions. She is in her sixth year of teaching at Crossroads. National recognition doesn't mean she plans to rest on her laurels. Instead, it is spurring her to work harder and share her message.
"With this award comes responsibility," she said. "I want to create new programs, really push the edge of traditional P.E. These kids start out as couch potatoes, and they are now skilled outdoorsmen."
She maintains ties with UA faculty members and recently proposed a partnership in which doctoral students would study the impact of her program built on Project Adventure curriculum developed by an international nonprofit organization of the same name.
"I would like to collect data to study how the curriculum affects student motivation, grades and staying out of trouble," she said. "I know it works; now, I want to prove it. I want statistics to back up what I believe in."
Walter has sought and received grants totaling $30,000 over five years to supplement the small budget for her classes. She has received donations from local businesses and individuals to pay for mountain bikes and other equipment. Every year, she teaches at least a couple of students to ride a bicycle for the first time.
She has attended many facilitator workshops for the Project Adventure curriculum. Kim Mason, physical education director for Rogers, obtained a PEP grant that helped purchase a K-12 Project Adventure curriculum and equipment packs.
Walter utilizes technology such as heart-rate monitors, pedometers and a computerized fitness assessment program that enables her to administer pre and post-program fitness tests.
"In Baltimore, several people approached me and said of the six people contending for the award, it was my program that pushed me to the top," Walter said. "Alternative learning environments offer desperately needed programs. Kids are dying in our streets in America, and the social impact of incarcerating someone for 40 years is huge. If we don't get them now, this may be the last chance."
Crossroads' goal is for students to stay one year, then return to a traditional setting. Most do, following evaluation by a team that includes Walter, but the school could take twice its current enrollment of 60 in the high school and 24 in the middle school if it had the space, she said. That may become reality in a few years because the district plans to move the school to another facility.
The staff is specially trained to address the students' needs, she said, and includes counselors and social workers. Walter communicates with the pregnant students' doctors because she doesn't want anyone sitting on the sidelines. Remaining active, as long as the doctor approves, can make the girl's pregnancy, labor and delivery easier while the isolation of being singled out hurts her, Walter said.
"I believe in what I'm doing," she said. "These kids deserve the most I can give them. I want them to leave with a bucket full of tools and a variety of experiences to pick and choose."
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
(479) 575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu