MONHEGAN, Maine — Living on an island can be isolating, especially after the tourists leave for the season and winter moves in.
For children, who number in the handful in many island schools, it's a constant struggle to find friends of the same age. But on the outer islands of Monhegan, Cliff, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut and the Cranberry Islands, one- and two-room schools are using technology and other strategies to connect with each other on a regular basis.
And as Susan Sharon reports that's bridging more than just a geographical gap.
It takes an hour by ferry to reach Monhegan Island, about ten miles off the coast of Maine.
Stepping off the boat is like walking into a life-size painting. Around every corner is another scenic view.
Long a haven for artists, the heavily forested island is also popular with birders and home to about 50 year-round residents, many of whom are lobstermen.
But the heart of Monhegan, the heart of every island, is the little, one-room school.
"Listen up!" says Jessie Campbell, coordinator of the Outer Islands Teaching and Learning Collaborative. "We are the Outer Islands TLC and we're made up of six different islands, one-room school houses just like here on Monhegan, and we have a talent show for you guys tonight!"
The collaborative was started several years ago by island teachers to provide peer support to each other and to their elementary school-age kids.
Campbell herself was a teacher on Monhegan for five years. When she started she had just two kids.
"You always get nervous when your population gets low but you just know that's part of the deal and the it will come and go," she says. "Things like this keep the hope alive that the population will rise again."
To combat the loneliness, the outer island schools get together for a multiday field trip in a different location. This year Monhegan played host to 30 children in grades K-8, along with their teachers and parents.
In addition to the talent show, the students held an interisland council meeting, did some painting, made pretzels and went on a scavenger hunt.
"Have you seen an invasive vine that grows as high as a spruce tree?" a boy says.
"I know we've got to keep our eyes peeled for that," says teacher Mandy Metrano.
"I've been out here for 25, 24 years," says Mattie Thomson, "to go lobstering."
Thomson and his wife have a 6-year-old son, Brownell, who is one of just seven children at the Monhegan school.
"He's like the mayor out here," Thomson says. "Everybody loves him. He's got all kinds of friends. He's got his summer friend, his winter friends. He's got boats to play in and skiffs and traps and anchors and everything little kids love to play with so, he's living the quintessential little kid dream, I think."
But for all the advantages that come with playing outside and having small, supportive communities, there are challenges for island kids, especially older kids who live far enough away from the mainland that they can't interact with their peers everyday, at least not in the typical way.
"Our children cannot take like a normal dance class or a karate class," says Cari Alley. "There's a lot of things our children miss out on being on an island."
Alley of Islesford has three kids, including a daughter who's a freshman at MDI High School on the mainland. She catches a 6:30 a.m. ferry every morning and comes home again at 5 pm.
"The two things that she was interested in, drama club and a photography club, they don't even start their thing until 5," Alley says.
Alley says eventually her daughter may decide to live with a family on the mainland so she can have a more traditional high school experience.
Either way, Alley says interisland events through the TLC have helped her children build social skills. Not only do they get together in person several times a year, but their classrooms are connected through videoconferencing. They do book groups and, says teacher Audrey Noether, once a month they even hold a virtual dance or social.
"The kids come up with some kind of a — I don't know — whatever they have to wear and then we have a little party on the video and then we dance together," she says. "They put together their playlist and we dance."
Noether has been a teacher at the Ashley Bryan School on Little Cranberry Island for the past three years. She can remember reaching an important benchmark not too long ago: having enough kids to play an actual kickball game at school.
"And that came with a whole bunch of, 'They're cheating! they're not playing fair!'" she says. "And then from that we learned to play together as a team in a group and how to problem-solve that way which we didn't know."
Noether says it's been easier for her to help struggling students who she might not normally connect with in a larger school. In this kind of setting where all eyes are upon you, it's not so easy to hide, and you have to work things out.
The school is now up to a whopping 17 students in grades K-8. The more the merrier as far as 4th grader Samson Gaither is concerned.
"I'd probably prefer a bigger school but that's my opinion," he says. "I think it would be funner to have more kids or people, yeah."
Gaither says he understands why some kids might be lonely living out here. But that, he says, is why interisland field trips and events are so special.
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As the kids say goodbye and their ferry starts to leave the dock, Campbell and two other teachers give them a traditional Monhegan send-off.
They fling themselves off the pier into the frigid water below.
Legend has it that if someone jumps into the water for you when you leave, you'll be coming back.
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