Desert Classroom Teaches Life's Lessons

By Bill Sontag
bill.sontag@delrionewsherald.com
Staff Writer, The Del Rio News-Herald

Desert Candle, Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer 2004
Reprinted with permission of the Desert Candle, The Desert-Mountain Times, Alpine, Texas

It is a false dichotomy to think of nature and man.   Mankind is that factor in nature which exhibits in its most intense form the plasticity of nature.
— Alfred North Whitehead

Carolyn Boyd and Phil Dering shared a scientifically informed, carefully nurtured sense of place in the Chihuahuan Desert long before they became residents in it. But moving to the caliche hills and limestone canyons of Val Verde County demonstrated the "put up, or shut up" life skills that enabled their muses of 4,000 years ago to survive and thrive.

Now Boyd's emerging Shumla School, beautifully sited on 70 donated acres about a half-mile from the Lower Pecos River, and Dering's flourishing Shumla Archeobotanical laboratory in nearby Comstock, offer services to Shumla students, along with other seekers and scholars.

School programs are designed to give visiting elementary, junior high and high school students a sense of life as it was in the tough environment of the Lower Pecos. Survival skills, problem-solving, self esteem-building, teamwork and leadership skills are emphasized; it's knowledge that will serve students long after they leave Shumla. Activities include stone tool making, building earth ovens to cook desert plants, visiting rock art sites, and learning about the relationship between art and survival.

Activities not included are Web surfing and television viewing. For students, Shumla is total immersion in a grand natural setting, where the sky, wind, geography, biology and history provide the entertainment and learning.

The husband-and-wife partners, both in their early 50s, abandoned teaching and research positions at Texas A&M University in 2003, offering dramatic, if risky proof of their conviction that others can develop a deeper appreciation of the Lower Pecos archeological region, too.

An uncharacteristically cool late May breeze rustled papers on his library desk as Dering reflected on the couple's decision to leave the university: "I told my clients we were moving here, and, to a 'T', they all declared, 'It's about time!'" Dering's enthusiasm suggests he is an unshackled, happy scientist.  

Even while earning their doctorates in anthropology along the Brazos River, the pair longed for a simpler, more gratifying lifestyle near the confluence of two other famous Texas rivers, the Pecos and the Rio Grande. Now Dering's archeological lab has 24 clients from universities and natural resource management companies in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. His colleagues and customers send him bags of soil from archeological digs around the Southwest for detailed analysis of plant material during different periods of deposition.

  "School" may dredge up painful adolescent memories for some, but Shumla School is aptly named.   Boyd knows that learning can be relaxing, invigorating and sheer fun for the students who come from area schools for the multi-day programs. In "Shumla," named for an area railroad stop, she has found an inspired acronym: Studying Human Use of Materials, Land, and Art.

  Program titles in the school's schedule — "Pecos River Kids" and "Shumla Adventures" — suggest that visiting students enjoy site-based learning, absent the traditional four-walled classroom. Student groups, accompanied by teachers and sometimes parent-chaperones, have come from Del Rio and other towns in the region, the major cities of Texas, also Colorado, New York and Washington D.C.

Boyd also is open to use of the campus for activities such as retreats, writing workshops or contemplative gatherings consistent with Shumla School's goals and its non-profit scientific and educational status.

The former Aggie professor divides her time between the joys of orchestrating group learning, and haunting corporate boardrooms and foundation offices for the financial support to operate and grow the school.

Boyd has been remarkably successful in the six quick years since Shumla School was recognized by the IRS as an educational and scientific institution.   More than $1.3 million in grants and donations have come to Shumla School to complete the institution's first period of development of three planned phases. The school has provided programs, museum experiences, camps and workshops for more than 10,000 participants, all in an absence of permanent overnight lodging on the school's desert campus.  

She is assisted by ranchers Jack and Missy Harrington, donors of the school site, who serve as cheerleaders, volunteers, hosts and an irreplaceable support system. Dering, of course, brings his knowledge to this vast natural classroom as needed.

Campus infrastructure slowly comes into view as visitors approach Shumla School over a winding gravel road that ascends from the highway through a discreetly marked gate, then gracefully spirals down into the bowl of the educational center's grounds. The school educational center, totaling some 4,600 square feet of floor space, includes a 1,600-square-foot pavilion, a commodious laboratory that triples as kitchen and classroom, an office, and remotely sited restrooms and shower house.

The pavilion faces east, accepting the warmth and brilliant light of a morning sun; on its sheltering west wall is a mammoth stone fireplace and hearth designed and constructed by Texas sculptor Dean Mitchell.   Mitchell is noted for his 15-ton Enduring Spirit solstice marker and shamanic effigy at the White Shaman Preserve managed by the Rock Art Foundation several miles from Shumla. Even without fire, Mitchell's Shumla gift is a beckoning, comforting highlight of the pavilion.

Participants overnight in 10 by 10 foot canvas tents, which is workable, but Boyd is seeking funds for permanent bungalows. The tents are outfitted with cots, tables and chairs, and Boyd intends for the bungalows to be only slightly more equipped. In addition, Boyd and Dering have planned an ethnobotanical garden to guarantee a source of edible plants consumed by Lower Pecos denizens four millennia ago.

Boyd's infectious optimism has inspired the confidence of area ranchers and public partnership landowners, who have offered access to more than 150,000 acres of their land for school activities and field trips to archeological sites, including the region's famed rock art panels in more than 200 limestone overhangs and caves in the area. Partnerships have also emerged with Seminole Canyon State Park, Amistad National Recreation Area and the Rock Art Foundation.

Boyd's "Pecos River Kids" program provide hands-on experiences for preadolescents and teenagers studying the Cretaceous geology so abundantly displayed in the Lower Pecos, as well as prehistoric human cultures, Texas history and Native American life ways. Experiences include creative writing, storytelling, and archeological site investigations.

"Shumla Adventures," slated for this fall, include watercolor workshops, sessions on art and archeology of the Lower Pecos, and prehistoric technologies. Also Native American basketry taught by Mescalero Apache teacher, collector and storyteller Ray Olachia.

Boyd's energies are now focused on a marketing plan and raising funds for further development on the Shumla campus.   Fourteen bungalows, the garden and a celestial observatory platform are expected by 2007.   Longer-range plans include an introductory visitor center in Comstock, a gift shop and a small, but comprehensive library.

Boyd and Dering are enthused about the desert oasis of culture and learning they have created in this raw but beautiful part of southwest Texas. "It's not just about survival in a physical landscape, but in a cultural, social and economic environment, anywhere we are." Boyd said. "It's all interrelated, and kids have to realize that and apply it to their lives today in our constantly changing environments."

See www.shumla.org for more information. Dering's services are described at www.archeobotanist.com.    Shumla School phone is (432) 292-4848.