From Ken Neal, Executive Director:

In these times of shifting sands in education and tumultuous school budgets, how does Call of the Sea fit the needs of kids, schools, and youth groups?  It’s an important and worthwhile question. 

We share the sea with them in a way that inspires kids to learn not just about maritime culture, ocean ecology, and teamwork but about why and how they learn.  In times when kids are ever more restricted to the four walls of classrooms, our ‘real world’ experience lets them haul on lines that propel the vessel, turn the wheel that steers it, and get their hands wet and dirty as they explore what is in San Francisco Bay.  When we worry that not enough student are motivated to learn science and math, Call of the Sea give kids interactions with their natural world and the applied math of navigation that make them literally say, “Wow, I love to learn this!”  The recent oil spill in the Gulf has reminded us all that we may sometimes take the ocean environment for granted; one of the best remedies for that is a young generation who grow up thinking of themselves as stewards of their oceans and their planet.  But they don’t develop that stewardship without a sense of familiarity first.

On the third day of a recent 5-day trip I was interviewed by two teens about my twenty years of going to sea.  But the interview soon turned from my experiences to theirs, because their excitement for all they were learning aboard Seaward was bursting from the seams, so to speak.  I realized that their innate, teen-aged sense of curiosity and wonder for their world had become focused on the ocean environment, what it takes to move a sailing ship, and how they worked with their shipmates to do it.  This was a force of learning that rarely finds fruition when restricted to boxes—the box of TV, the internet, their cell phone, or the classroom.  Through their experiences aboard Seaward they had found a means of expression and learning that went beyond those boxes.

This spring and summer has seen us “widen our wake” by bringing those experiences to an even broader range of Bay Area youth.  From docks in Sausalito, Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Monterey, we have introduced youth to the maritime world and the challenges of exploring it.  YMCA groups, summer camps for underserved youth, Boys & Girls clubs, inner-city recreation centers, KIPP schools, groups of developmentally disabled people, multicultural organizations, Scouts, and others have helped raise Seaward’s sails.  

The fact of the matter—and this is especially true in this recession—is that we need the help of our Call of the Sea community to find those kids and their teachers and the support for them.  If you know of a motivated teacher who may want to get their class out on San Francisco Bay, or a supporter who wants a direct part in making these experiences happen, please give me a call.  Referrals are, by far, the way most people learn about Call of the Sea and our programs (and our other supporting sails as well).  So please help us to widen the wake!

               -Ken Neal