A School Distanced From Technology Faces Its Intrusion

Past the chicken coop and up a hill, in a spot on campus where the wooden buildings of the Mountain School can seem farther away than the mountains of western New Hampshire, there sometimes can be found a single bar, sometimes two, of cellphone reception. The spot, between the potato patch and a llama named Nigel, is something of an open secret at the school in this remote corner of Vermont where simplicity is valued over technology.

“We’re at the periphery of civilization here,” said Doug Austin, a teacher. But that is about to change. The school offers high school juniors, many from elite private institutions in the Northeast, a semester to immerse themselves in nature. The students make solo camping trips to a nearby mountain for a day or two of reflection, and practice orienteering skills without a GPS device. Between English and environmental science classes, they care for farm animals, chop wood and read the works of Robert Frost. And in the process, many say, they stop scouring the campus for its sparse bars of reception and lose the habit of checking their Facebook pages at every opportunity. As the rest of the country has gotten high-speed Internet, Vershire (population 730) has lagged, relying on land lines shared among neighbors, with dial-up and (for homes that face the right way) satellite Internet service that cuts out when the weather is rough. But cellphone signals have been seeping in, and soon there will be more. This fall, technicians will start laying fiber-optic cable to bring high-speed Internet to the town. Cellphone coverage is expected soon after. “Right now we’re the third-world country of Vermont,” said Gene Craft, the town clerk. “We’d like to be in touch.” That presents a challenge for the Mountain School: how to regulate the use of smartphones and other devices that serve as a constant distraction for 21st-century teenagers, who are here to engage with the rural setting and with one another.