Jim Parker
Jim is the Adventure Coordinator for Odyssey. He comes with a long background of exploring, adventuring and teaching in the outdoors. One of his earliest memories of outdoor adventure is hiding in a giant pile of leaves during a game of hide-and-seek: “I remember being able to see out, but no one could see in. It took them almost an hour to find me. During that time I was totally engulfed and surrounded by these leaves. When the other kids were off in another part of the wood, I could see the hidden life of the forest as squirrels and birds ran past me or landed on a nearby tree trunk. It was so quiet.” He has been chasing after that quiet, that connectedness with our natural surroundings ever since.Jim began his teaching career as an Outdoor Education Specialist at Boston University’s Sargent Center in Peterborough, NH where (among other things) he taught forest and wetland ecology, geology, astronomy and teambuilding. “It was there that I realized how fantastic the students I had were and how their unsullied perceptions of nature helped me to change and refine my own beliefs.” After meeting the love of his life, Brenda, and taking an extended road trip of the United States, Jim taught a year of 8th grade science in an urban city north of Boston. “It was a pretty rough trial by fire.”
Missing being close to the mountains, Jim and Brenda moved to Colorado in 2005 and Jim began his career at Odyssey teaching in the 5/6 crew; first as an assistant and eventually as the lead teacher. It was during this time and with the opportunity of the Adventure Coordinator position opening up that Jim realized that his true passion was for teaching children in the outdoor classroom. “There are so many teachable moments…so many AHA!s when you bring students into the field. I believe that embracing the spirit of Adventure, of challenging ourselves in an environment that is foreign to us yet that we are inextricably connected to can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our crew and the world around us.”