This is Michael Wing's web site.

In 2007 Dr. Wing participated in a study tour to the Galapagos islands through the Toyota International Teacher Program. Here are some photos.

If you are a teacher and are interested in learning about other all-expenses-paid travel opportunities, click here.
If you are a science teacher and want to apply for a grant for a school science project, or do a summer program, click here.

Students from Drake High have built an insulated mini-greenhouse at the University of California’s White Mountain Research Station (elevation 12,500’) Click here if you want to learn more or get involved.

Brief Biography:

Dr. Wing was born in Boston in 1963. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. He attended the University of Chicago where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1985. He earned a Ph.D. in earth sciences at the University of California at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1991.

He taught for three years at a small liberal arts college in New York called Hobart & William Smith Colleges and for one year at Middlebury College in Vermont. Being restless he left teaching for a few years to live in California and try the environmental consulting business. He is the author of ten papers published in scientific journals on topics in geochemistry, oceanography, limnology and planetary science.

Since 1998 he has taught at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California. Most of that teaching has been in the ROCK program, an academy within Drake High consisting of four teachers and one hundred 9th and 10th graders. Dr. Wing was hired into the program by accident but he has grown to love it. Here's why: "In traditional school you can get straight-A's merely by doing what you're told and having a good work ethic. You could be passive and self-centered but still have the work you turn in be graded as 'excellent.' The real world (and ROCK) rewards initiative, creativity, engagement, teamwork, and coping with ambiguity."

Dr. Wing lives in Kentfield. He married his wife Katherine in 1986 and they have two children George (born in 1997) and Elise (born in 2000). Dr. Wing's brother is the screenwriter George Wing and his sister Monica Wing is an artist. His family likes to hike, camp, go to the beach, travel and garden. At age 40 he began taking lessons in classical and flamenco guitar from his excellent teacher Matthew Monftort. He is making steady progress, which just shows that you can teach an old dog new tricks. He also has a small sailboat called a West Wight Potter. He sails it on Tomales Bay, and keeps it at the Inverness Yacht Club.

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Wing's alternative counseling center - some unusual opportunities for teenagers:

(If you have comments, corrections, or additions to this list you wish me to consider, e-mail me at wing@marin.k12.ca.us or mwing@tamdistrict.org)

(College)

Don't worry about college admissions and high school grades.

Anyone can go to Harvard (You don't need good grades, high SAT's or lots of money.)

More Drake students should consider attending a small liberal arts college, an art school, or maybe a maritime academy. Or, the honors college at a big state university.

Here are some 4-year Colleges that don't charge tuition.

Some Drake students go to college in Canada. Or even in the United Kingdom.

Deep Springs College This selective private two-year college in the California desert is on a working ranch. You take classes in the morning and work as a ranch hand in the afternoon. Tuition is free, and you transfer to a 4-year college when your two years are up.

St. John's College At this amazing college everyone takes the same courses. But what a program it is: all the great books of Western literature and philosophy. Greek and French. Math and Music. Laboratory Science. This is "Liberal Arts" at its purest and most intense. Will it prepare you for a job? Better than most other colleges, if you judge by the success of its graduates. A few Drake students have gone here.

A former Drake student attends Moorpark College's Exotic Animal Training and Management Program (EATM)

A former Drake student attended Columbia College's Fire Technology Program to learn firefighting.

(Science/Medicine)

The California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park has year-around, multi-year paid internships for 9th and 10th graders. You work six to ten hours a week there and get promoted over the years into positions of increasing responsibility and pay.

The Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato has paid summer internships for Marin County High School Students to do research in Biology. I know several Drake students who have done this. Don't be fooled if their web site says "no openings available" but go find Roberta Dossick, Drake High's School-to-Career liaison and ask her how to apply!

There are also paid sumer research internships for high school students at:
The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Institute at U. C. Berkeley,
The Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley,
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, and
Stanford University's Center for Clinical Immunology.

If you want to go farther than the San francisco Bay Area to look for a paid high school research internship, here is the link to a big nationwide list of programs.

There are also internships in marine biology available at San Francisco State University's Romberg Tiburon Center for Enviromental Studies in Tiburon. Roberta Dossick can set you up.

Some Drake students help care for sick seals at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

Some Drake students volunteer as interns at Marin General Hospital. They line up these internships through Roberta Dossick of the Marin County School to Career Partnership. Working in a hospital is very educational, and useful. The only time I was a patient in Marin General's emergency room, a Drake student I knew was volunteering. Learn more at the Youth Health Forums. (You can get out of school for the day.)

Your choices for science classes at Drake

(Get out of Drake)

Not happy at Drake? You have other options besides sticking it out until graduation. Even if you are happy here, read this anyway.

(Foreign Travel, Study & Service)

Amigos de Las Americas Volunteer to do public health work in Latin America during the summer. I volunteered in the Dominican Republic in 1980 and it had a huge impact on my life. My brother and my wife are ex-amigos too. My father was president of the Boston chapter. Lots of Drake students have done this! Your Spanish teacher can probably tell you more.

United World Colleges Attend an elite private high school in New Mexico, Canada, Norway, Wales, Italy, Venezuela, India, Africa, Hong Kong or Singapore - and it's free! I know a Drake student who did this. Apply during your junior year. You will end up going to high school for an extra year, but these high schools look and feel more like college. Besides, you will earn an International Baccalaureate diploma, which will certainly make you look good when it's time to apply to a 4-year university.

Some Drake students have spent a semester or a year studying abroad as an exchange student through AFS Intercultural Programs. Does it disrupt your academic progress? Maybe a little, but travel and living away from home are educational too. Summer exchange programs to France, Spain or Costa Rica are available through Edu-Culture International, a Bay Area-based nonprofit organization. You can go practically anywhere with the Experiment in International Living.

The Bay-area based Let's Go: Israel! has a month long program in Israel that focuses on Judaism and Israeli-Arab coexistence.

(Summer Programs at Universities for high school students)

The California State Summer School for Mathematics ansd Science (COSMOS) has excellent and affordable summer programs on the campuses of UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz. Admission is comptetitive. Some Drake students have done this.

The Telluride Association's six-week Junior Seminars and Sophomore Seminars in African American Studies are FREE and excellent. Most are conducted at Cornell University and the University of Michigan.

Over a dozen Drake students have attended The National Youth Leadership Forum's programs in medicine, law, technology, and diplomacy - (mostly in medicine.)

(Arts)

The California State Summer School for the Arts (InnerSpark) offers month-long programs in film, creative writing, art, music, dance, animation and theater. It is held on the campus of the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles. Since it is a state-run program the cost is reasonable. Just over $2000 pays for the entire month, and there is financial aid available. Some Drake students have done this.

Some students have left Drake for a semester to study art and design at the Oxbow School in Napa. They then returned to Drake and graduated on time.

'Til Dawn is an excellent a capella singing group consisting of about a dozen 9th-12th graders. I've known several Drake students who belonged. You have to audition (in May or June) to get in. Auditions in 2007 are set for May 7. Some Drake students also perform with Singers of Marin.

(Sports)

Not every high school has a Mountain Bike Team. Drake does, and they are champions.

Drake High has no rowing ("crew") teams but some Drake students join the very successful junior teams of the Marin Rowing Association in Greenbrae. I have known several Drake students who have rowed at the Head of the Charles Regatta (America's biggest crew event) through Marin Rowing and who have gone on to get rowing scholarships at universities. If you want to get involved with Marin Rowing, they have summer beginner programs for teens. It helps to be big & strong.

(Outdoors)

Several Drake students volunteer as members of the Marin County Search & Rescue Team. After getting trained in wilderness medicine and search & rescue techniques, they respond to outdoor emergencies and hunt for missing hikers.

The Marin Conservation Corps has summer jobs for high school students maintaining trails, etc. through Project ReGeneration. Some Drake students have done this. The MCC also has jobs and programs for young adults 18 and older.

The Point Reyes National Seashore has internships (some paid) and summer jobs for high school students. Marin County Parks hires summer help for $14-16/hour. Santa Rosa Junior College has a Ranger Academy, where you can learn to be a park ranger. It also has a Police Academy and a Fire Academy.

Outward Bound is an expensive kind of adventure travel, but it has a good reputation. If you want to become a wilderness guide yourself, probably the best place to get the training is the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS.) You can get college credit. The Sea Education Association has excellent 3-week summer programs in oceanography on board square-rigged sailing ships.

Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

(Public Policy)

Some Drake students interested in influencing public policy and even making laws or trying court cases volunteer for the Marin Youth Court, the Marin County Youth Comission, the Marin Youth Health Advisory Council, or the Marin Youth Grants Board. Or they join Junior State of America or participate in one of the Congressional Youth Leadership Council's conferences.

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How should I live? - by Michael Wing

People don't become happy by satisfying their desires... They become happy by living within a belief system that restrains and gives coherence to their desires:

"Above all the other necessities of human nature, above the satisfaction of any other need, above hunger, love, pleasure, fame - even life itself - what a man most needs is the conviction that he is contained within the discipline of an ordered existence."

- David Brooks (quoting the journalist Walter Lippmann) in his New York Times August 13, 2006 Op-Ed piece

Teaching high school gives me the time to read. It also allows me to directly observe over a thousand young adults and a few older ones. This is an unexpected fringe benefit of the job. Many teenagers care about questions like: "How can we have justice?" "How should I live?" "What do I need to be happy?" and "What's my place in the universe?"

Most adults seem to have given up in discouragement on these questions and instead focus on daily life and earning money. This is sad and unnecessary. There are many things we know for sure, and many other things can be inferred from adult experience. I am too busy now with teaching, my family, etc., to write down everything I know... but someday I will write it down! Meanwhile:

read Walden by Henry David Thoreau
keep chickens
Things we like to do with children in the San Francisco Bay Area
Forage for wild edible plants
read The Nature of the Universe by Lucretius
read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
On the economics of sailing
How to live to 100
Keeping animals is good for you
Cosmology questions that ought to keep you awake at night
Read The Lost World of the Kalahari by Laurens van der Post.
Photos

(THIS PART OF THE SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Why isn't modern life more satisfying? What can be done about it?
I want my children to live like Europeans
The gap between the rich & the poor
Try a home exchange