The Grauer School's Spring Expeditions - Yosemite National Park

During Spring Expeditions week at The Grauer School, all of our students traveled throughout California, around the United States, and abroad. The school was founded on the idea of “learning by discovery”, and our Expeditionary Learning program provides students with the worldwide experience to become compassionate, service-minded citizens.

Clayton Payne, Patricia Young, Dr. Peter Mannisto, Johnny King, and Dr. Paige Prindle led our expedition to Yosemite National Park, following in the footsteps of John Muir. Their Yosemite adventure included viewing Half Dome, El Capitan, some of North America’s tallest waterfalls, Sequoia trees, and the Merced River. The spirit of this expedition was to slow down and take the time to let the beauty of nature inspire each individual’s creativity as the students enjoyed a technology-free week to work on creative projects of their own design throughout the week.

The Yosemite expedition was the 40th expedition completed by Clayton Payne over the 20 years he has worked at The Grauer School, which is an amazing accomplishment! Clayton is the embodiment of relationship-based education, and his steadfast dedication to the expeditionary learning program at Grauer has left a lasting impact on the organization and our students. Clayton said, "How does one sum up 40 expeditions? Much has changed, yet there is a striking similarity through them all. No matter what shape the journey takes, I remain awed by the same magic. I find myself guided by the intellectual curiosity of the students who are so open to discovery. On this most recent expedition, standing in Yosemite as water roared down cliff faces, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that while these forces were changing the valley over time, the beauty remained consistent. Just like my experience over 40 expeditions."