BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
At Morse High School in Bath, Maine, detention doesn’t always mean fluorescent lights and silent classrooms. Thanks to one school counselor’s creative vision, it might mean lacing up your boots and heading into the forest.
“We kind of take a side shoot here, so we make a loop, but we’ll come back along the river,” explained counselor Leslie Trundy, pointing to a trail map as she led a group of seven students onto the Whiskeag Trail. “We should be back by four. Okay? Does anyone have any questions?”
The students had landed in detention for a variety of reasons, from skipping class to talking back to teachers. But this wasn’t your typical disciplinary session.
“I yelled at a teacher rudely because I didn’t feel like doing something,” admitted freshman Nicholas Tanguay. “When they tried to make me do it, I got angry and yelled at them.”
“Skipping class… added up tardies. Never actually getting in trouble, in trouble,” said sophomore Elsie Nelson-Walling.
And for freshman Wyatt Wells, “Playing video games in class… I found that one stupid. So I was like, I’m not sitting in the classroom for that.”
Instead, they chose a two-hour hike after school.
A counselor with a compass
Trundy came up with the idea after attending an outdoor education conference last fall. Inspired by the potential of nature to create space for growth, she launched the hike-as-detention experiment with hopes of turning punishment into reflection.
“My hope was that time in the woods… I could be a listener for them,” she said. “To pay back the time to the school and serve their consequence—but also receive more care and attention.”
The approach hasn’t been without pushback. Some parents have declined to let their kids participate, and Trundy has heard from critics who say a walk in the woods doesn’t sound like much of a punishment.
Still, she sees glimmers of success.
“I don’t think I have enough data yet that’s statistically relevant,” Trundy admitted. “But I have had kids join the club because of going on the hike—and that I feel really very happy about.”
That club is the school’s outdoor outing group, which Trundy also helps run.
From consequence to connection
Wyatt Wells, the gamer turned hiker, said he’s been on six or seven detention hikes this school year. The most recent one, however, wasn’t mandatory.
“I haven’t gotten detention in three months now, since the new year,” he said. “I told my mom I was not getting any more detentions.”
Sophomore Sona Kipoy doesn’t have a disciplinary record but joins the hikes regularly anyway. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she’s a new Mainer who says her ten hikes this year have helped her feel more grounded.
“So you can just find yourself… yeah, I guess finding yourself in a forest is easier than in the city,” Kipoy reflected.
About halfway through the hike, the group pauses for a snack. Trundy reads a poem aloud, inviting her students to notice the changes around them:
“The swelling buds and little blossoms make a new softness in the light that is visible all the way here… the trees, the hills that were stark in the old cold become now tender, and time changes.”
For Nicholas Tanguay, the trail provides more than just an alternative to a desk.
“It makes me have to walk. It makes you breathe heavily, obviously, and it feels like an accomplishment, almost,” he said. “Maybe it’s also good for people’s mental health. If you’ve had a bad day, the option to do this means you have to dread detention less.”
Next steps
Trundy plans to continue the program in the fall and is eager to see what growth the next school year might bring.
“I’m so curious if some of the freshmen that I’ve started hiking with this year… are they still hiking with me when they’re seniors? Or are they hiking in outing club like these students?” she said. “I could see leadership potential in a lot of them.”
If nothing else, the trail has become a place where students and their stories are allowed to unfold at their own pace.
