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Nature's Classroom

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Nature's Classroom Reviews

4.0

90% would recommend to a friend

(21 total reviews)

18% positive business outlook

Nature's Classroom has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 21 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Nature's Classroom employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Non-profit and NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

21 reviews
1.0
12 Feb 2019

Cult-like atmosphere

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Housing of a kind is offered as is some cafeteria food

Cons

Extremely young staff and management, often with little experience to prepare them for management. Atmosphere is very immature with constant "meetings," group sings and the like.

2.0
25 Feb 2018

Gives Environmental Education a Bad Name

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Actually relatively high pay for the EE world. A lot of creative freedom/independence in terms of what you teach and how you teach it. Many of the sites are in beautiful places (especially Silver Bay and Freedom).

Cons

NC places little to no attention on staff training, or even hiring, meaning that a large chunk of the teachers really have no business being in the field with students. All leadership are inside hires, meaning that Program Coordinators are often the most popular rather than the most talented staff. Risk management, curriculum, and pedagogy are not high priorities for NC, meaning that the program is really more like a summer camp than an outdoor science school. Those who are new to EE or just looking to have fun (rather than build a career) may enjoy working for NC, but any seasoned educator will struggle with the culture and management issues.

3.0
14 Nov 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Flexibility to explore topics that interest you with kids is great. Having the full weekend off every week is nice. Living on site with coworkers is fun, and it's nice to not worry about providing your own food. Meeting new kids every week is fun and refreshing. Coworkers are diverse, interesting, and passionate. Flexibility to work at different sites is fun.

Cons

Very limited personal time. Teacher to student ratio is very bad (12 students or more per teacher) is overwhelming. Food is typical summer camp or middle school cafeteria food, quite unhealthy and mass produced. Unsanitary kitchen conditions, mice infestation. Living arrangements, while free, are rather cramped and minimal. Long hours are exhausting and leave little time for out of work development. Pay is extremely low (due to provided food and housing), less than $50 a day for often over 12 hours of work. Amount of custodial work required by staff was ridiculous. "Teachers" spent as much or more time cleaning the facilities (dining hall, dorms, bathrooms, etc.) each week than actually teaching. Expected to have a college degree, but required to be a dishwasher and a custodian for hours each day.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 21 Reviews

Glassdoor has 35 Nature's Classroom reviews submitted anonymously by Nature's Classroom employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Nature's Classroom is right for you.