Sam Enlund
Sports/Social Media Editor
Kerry Arens was named as a recipient of the Outstanding Leader in Experiential Education: K–12 Award. She will receive the award at the 54th annual Society for Experiential Education Conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
This year will be Arens’ sixth year at Webster Groves High School as the Coordinator of the Chelsea Center. She described finding her love of experiential learning through the Parkway and Kirkwood School Districts as an English teacher.
Arens said, “…I often found the learning students enjoyed and remembered most was experiential learning. Whether students wrote books for elementary students and then read them aloud to their book buddies or traveled with me to the opera or Shakespeare in the Park, their engagement grew, and our connection with each other strengthened because of those shared experiences. I was hooked.”
After finding out she would be receiving the award in August, Arens described her reaction and said, “This award is particularly meaningful to me since it comes from an organization that is a leader in scholarship and best practices in experiential education. It is recognition that even though we work in the K-12 arena, a different arena than the majority of SEE scholars, our work, the work of our students, our teachers, is of the highest quality.”
Arens also hopes that receiving this award will help her and the program build connections with global colleagues, as that would help the program learn and grow. She wants to build connections with colleagues in higher education and other K-12 institutions.
This is the first international award that Arens has received. As an English teacher, she was honored by a regional organization called the Greater St. Louis English Teachers Association.
About Arens, coworker Patrick Bommarito said, “Now working through the Chelsea Center, Arens has multiple different aspects to her job.”
The Webster-Kirkwood Times said, “Under Arens’ leadership, the Chelsea Detrick Center for Experiential Learning has become a hub for connecting students with internships, service learning, community partnerships and real-world problem-solving projects in the school district.”
Arens also develops community partnerships, manages different scholarships through the Chelsea Center, such as the Chelsea Detrick Memorial Scholarship and the Gap Year Scholarship, and she helps parents and other community members understand the value of experiential learning.
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Sam Enlund-Social Media/Sports Editor This will be Sam Enlund’s third year on ECHO staff. She also made several contributions while taking journalism class her freshman year. |
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