Academics

The academic program at Aspen Achievement Academy is designed to complement the therapeutic objectives of the program and promote positive learning experiences. The outdoor classroom provides a diverse physical setting that allows students to learn geology by studying rock strata and fossils, astronomy by looking into the clear night skies, and biology through study of local plants and animals. This "hands-on" experiential approach makes learning interesting and fun. It facilitates positive personal growth while enabling students to relate knowledge from books to real life experiences.

The curriculum focuses on English, Social Studies, General Science, and Physical Education. Students must complete written educational modules in addition to experiential activities to receive credits.

Our curriculum, with its experiential approach, teaches students personal responsibility and provides students with the opportunity for a successful educational experience. Students graduate from Aspen Achievement Academy with a renewed sense of hope and enthusiasm for the learning process. This enables them to go on to other learning environments with the groundwork laid for continued academic growth and success.

Education Curriculum Description

Aspen Achievement Academy is a treatment program which is committed to guiding students and their families toward internalizing principles and developing skills which facilitate positive personal growth. This is accomplished through the use of experiential education, metaphor, and therapy in an outdoor setting.

The wilderness experience serves the purpose of acting as a major catalyst in initiating the therapy process. Education provides direction for the wilderness experience and is designed to give structured support to therapy.  As the program now exists, education objectives compliment the therapy program and are strictly bonded to the experiential education philosophy. The curriculum is comprehensive and intense. Academic subject areas were chosen to facilitate therapeutic objectives. Therefore, subject areas and objectives are basically set. What this means is that "extra" or other academic requirements cannot be accommodated without compromising program focus.

We are licensed by the Utah State Department of Licensing to operate as an Outdoor Youth Program. Our efforts are directed primarily to helping students develop positive attitudes toward learning and helping them choose goals which have meaning and relevance to them personally.
Aspen Achievement Academy operates under a continuous enrollment system which allows students to enter the program at any time. This system provides many benefits, one of which is that new students enter a group which is already grounded and stable, with students who have been here for various periods of time, who have already "bought into" the program and can provide positive peer modeling.

A student's first experience with academics begins immediately. Students who are new to the program begin their academic work with lessons titled, ”Wilderness Fundamentals” and “Primitive Skills”. These lessons are designed to teach skills which deal with personal safety and care with particular focus directed toward developing a strong survival attitude and problem solving ability. Students are expected to complete these activities within the first few days. At that point they will move into the academic activities with the rest of the students in the group. Daily academic activities require no prerequisites so a student may enter the academic program with the rest of the group whenever they are ready.

There are fifteen educational activity booklets which students complete as part of the program. All students work on the same activity during a particular academic session so that group discussion can be facilitated. This is accomplished by having students who have just completed the “Wilderness Fundamentals” and “Primitive Skills”, go directly to the activity on which the other students are working. When the last academic activity is completed by the student group, those graduating will have completed all of the activities and all of the curriculum and those not graduating will go back perhaps and start on activity one, and complete all those activities up to the point at which they first entered the activity program.

It may be of some interest and use to explain how the academic program has been tailored to compliment the therapy program and give structure to the wilderness experience. The wilderness experience is structured by creating a curriculum which utilizes the diverse physical setting available to us. This setting includes: clear skies for studying astronomy, geological diversity and a geologic landscape unequaled anywhere in the world. One of the activities focuses on the survival instincts of animals and points out how they have survival instincts which have allowed the species to continue, but which have also furnished a guarantee of extinction should conditions on earth change. On the other hand, human beings are not burdened with a multitude of survival instincts, therefore they must learn behavior which allows them to survive. Therapeutically, we can use this to show the importance of education, of home, and the role of parents in raising children.

Our curriculum, with its experiential approach, teaches students personal responsibility for their learning process and provides students with the opportunity for a successful educational experience. Students graduate from Aspen Achievement Academy with a renewed sense of hope and enthusiasm for the learning process, enabling them to go on to other learning environments with the groundwork laid for continued academic growth and success.