Steinbeck Youth Institute Takes Trip Up the Coast of California

Over spring break, English teacher Pete Barraza and the Steinbeck Youth Institute took 24 Samo students to explore and immerse themselves in the literary world of John Steinbeck and other California-inspired writers. Their purpose was to expose interested high schoolers to this interspersed approach on the research and development, modeled after the NEH Steinbeck Institute for educators. The institute strives for the participating students to become the future ambassadors of intellectual curiosity.  Since the NEH Steinbeck Institute is strictly designed for 4th-12th grade teachers, Barraza decided to create the Steinbeck Youth Institute to give high school students a similar opportunity to be in an environment where Steinbeck’s “intersecting visions” took place.  The last two trips have been experimental in the process of deciding on who gets to go, but for the next trip in 2019 Barraza is planning to select students based on an application. His mission for teaching Steinbeck is for his students to understand the possible holistic connection of his work to their own life. “I wanted to create something that could celebrate the humanities in terms of literature. And to create relationship based on relationship of the books their reading plus the locality and the people they meet along the way, who have had a professional investment,” Barraza said.  This group of students were not necessarily “hand-picked” by Barraza, but instead quickly latched onto the opportunities given by him as far as two years back. The students who chose to put more effort into the class, like deciding to read additional texts, just responded. Also it makes sense that these students who surfaced are also just as excellent in other disciplines. They presented themselves as curious and willing to read outside of regular curriculum.  “I’ve had the luxury of having many of these students for two or even three years. So eventually the group of students started to formulated and I kind of cultivated that group. It’s created a nice community and family of readers and writers,” Barraza said.  The SYI trip was filled with countless activities where students could gain an increased appreciation for the connection between Steinbeck’s novels and other scientific ideas. The group visited places such as The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Corral De Tierra (Steinbeck's landscape for The Pastures of Heaven), Cannery Row and the Pacific Biological Lab of Ed Ricketts in Monterey and Point Lobos. The group had a particularly memorable highlight of their morning spent in the Robinson Jeffers Tor House, whose poems created ideas that were greatly influenced by other artists and thinkers of his time and area. Not only did students get to observe these significant areas, but they were also bestowed with visits by several speakers, such as Dr. Susan Shillinglaw (author of introductions to Penguin editions of “Cannery Row” and “Of Mice and Men”), who specifically discussed the ecological matter relating to Steinbeck’s novels.  SYI may not be widely known throughout the district, but it’s still incredibly welcomed by numerous individuals who believe in the relationship between the arts and letters and that this opportunity is worthwhile.  This trip to Monterey Bay has, not only, given the students a very powerful historic experience, but it has also shown a different approach to the “ideal form of experiential learning.”