Children & Nature network

Halo Shapiro Smart, 2010 Natural Teachers Award Finalist

– November 23, 2010
By Sara St. Antoine

Sara St. Antoine is a C&NN Senior Writer and Switzer Foundation Fellow

For Halo Shapiro Smart, a love of the natural world came early. Growing up on a Kentucky farm and home-schooled by parents who believed in learning from the environment, Halo spent long hours outdoors. Her family also instilled in her a commitment to service—a sense that living in community means giving back to that community. Today she combines these values in her work as the leader of the REAL Academy (Redwood Academy of Environmental Leadership) at Redwood High School in San Mateo County, California. Halo, a 9-12th grade teacher, was nominated by community partner Beth Ross.


Redwood High School is a so-called “continuation school”—a final net in the district’s system to catch the students who lack enough credits to graduate, who don’t function well in a typical school setting, and who often have to hold jobs to help support their families. The REAL Academy is a school within a school and offers its own special curriculum focused on service and the environment. Many of Halo’s students have extremely challenging home lives, struggling with drug and alcohol addictions, abusive parents, street violence, and more. Halo sees both nature and service as offering the students new paths to a sense of self and community.


Halo says of her students, “The kids are pretty hardened. Their life experiences have taught them to wear heavy shields, and they don’t give you a lot right off.” But each week brings glimpses of something different. Halo describes a recent trip to a nearby organic farm, where the kids pick vegetables, cook food, and tend the farm animals. “At first everyone will complain about stuff like dealing with broccoli,” Halo says. “Then they start to shed their armor and become kids again. They get excited about touching a sheep. They start to run, goof off.” What is it about the time on the farm that inspires such playfulness in kids 16 and 17 years old? “It’s a safe environment,” Halo explains. Growing up in crime-filled neighborhoods, they have never known security outside. Many don’t go outside because their parents don’t let them. Or if they go out, they walk tough and keep their guards up.


Teenagers opening up to their younger selves in just a small part of what Halo witnesses at school. She also sees new levels of cooperation and a greater sense of personal responsibility, especially toward the natural world. “Our mantra is ‘we gotta take care of our mama’”—Mama Nature, that is. Halo is the first to admit that the days can be challenging, that the kids can drag their feet and expect her to do all the work. But she is sustained by the small moments of transformation and the sense that they are building to something greater. She relishes the breakdown of stereotypes that occur when the kids leave the classroom and start working outside. On a recent stream cleanup, many of her students didn’t want to get dirty. But soon they gave in to the day’s responsibilities and were working together in an assembly-line fashion to clear out the trash. They marveled that the members of another school group—mostly affluent and white—were willing to get dirty, too. Those students, in turn, expressed surprised that Halo’s students were even “into the environment” at all.


Halo also describes how moved she was by the progress of a young female student whose violent household had led her to self-destructive behaviors. The girl began growing a pea plant and took intense pride in nurturing it week after week. She’d ask to spend free time sitting beside her pea plant and relaxing. In time, the plant flourished—producing better than any other plant in the garden. “I love my peas,” the girl would say with a depth of feeling Halo found remarkable.


Recent graduates from Halo’s classroom demonstrate some of the impacts this program has had. One student became a camp counselor at the local farm and received rave reviews about his performance. He’s now in community college and planning a career in outdoor education. Another student found an internship in the earth sciences department at Stanford and is now enrolled in community college as well.


Talking to Halo for a while, you realize her sense of responsibility to her students is so deep she doesn’t even notice what’s special about her own contributions. She’s quick to give credit to the program and loathe to attribute any outstanding capacities to herself. And yet it’s clear that her commitment drives this program. She is the sole director of the REAL Academy and the students’ only full-time teacher. The kids come back to her, often asking to contribute to the program once they’ve graduated.


“The kids are very loyal,” she admits. “They see me as having given them this experience. They’re grateful.” That trust and gratitude are much of what inspire her when the work gets hard. And she says what sustains her most of all is “that shift that occurs in kids when they come into an awareness beyond themselves. They realize there’s a reason to care about their community and take care of it.”

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