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On Friday, 166 Boone Middle School eighth graders dove right into this life lesson for a class retreat at Camp Hantesa, sponsored by Boone County SAFE, the Boone Booster Club and the BMS Student Council.
Throughout the day, the students participated in activities that fostered teamwork, goal setting and healthy choices. Students worked within their homeroom classes and tackled the challenges of the confidence course, which presented physical and mental challenges that required the students to be active listeners and creative thinkers. In one task, students used the scientific principal of leverage to move team members from one "island" to another, using wooden planks.
"The overall purpose is to get the kids to think creatively and to work in teams," said BMS counselor Sue Gradoville, who has helped coordinate the retreat for 15 years.
Students split up into three group sessions. One session was with Boone Police Officer Cory Rose, which focused on drug awareness. Student Assistance Counselor Erin Daley addressed high school drug and alcohol use and its consequences and BHS math teacher and tennis coach Jeff Wells discussed making good choices, team work and goal setting.
During his discussion with the students, Wells had the students take part in an activity known as "Master Buckets." The objective for students was to successfully throw a tennis ball into a bucket from various positions. At first, students had to have their backs to the buckets, which made the overall objective very difficult, which Wells related to goal setting.
"That's like not seeing your target. It's not seeing your goal and if you don't have goals you can't reach them. You got to be able to have your goals focused," Wells said.
At one point, the buckets were placed at a further distance, which presented the fact that some goals are too far out of reach.
"It's great to have goals, but sometimes your goals are so far away they're not reachable," Wells said.
During the third round of the activity, the buckets were directly in front of the students, which made them realize that they cannot just have their goals and aspirations handed to them. Throughout the activity, Wells told the students that they would learn the meaning of the word, "ubuntu." In the final round, one student held a bucket and caught each students' ball with the bucket,
creating the sense that working together can accomplish feats, or capture the
spirit of ubuntu.
"You helped each other. You worked together. And my friends, that's what ubuntu means. Ubuntu is an African words that means, 'I am, because we are,'" Wells said.
With the eighth graders one year away from high school and a whole new field of challenges in front of them, Gradoville said the retreat's activities will suit them well when encountering future obstacles.
"It's probably a good time for them to extend themselves a little bit and think outside the box, stretch themselves, do things that maybe they have never done before, to help them develop some confidence before they move onto high school," Gradoville said.
Though the obstacles that lie ahead are larger in scale, the students realized that teamwork can overcome some of those obstacles.
"We like for them to develop some confidence and leadership early in the year because they're the leaders of the middle school, so maybe some of the things they pick up today will strengthen some relationships they've never had and will allow them to get to know some people that they've never really gotten to know. It's going to improve the culture around the building because they're going to trust each other more and treat each other a little more respectfully," Gradoville said.
Gradoville said that the retreat should be beneficial for students, because they had the opportunity to work within their homeroom groups, which may make them realize that together, they can accomplish many feats.
"They'll be together the rest of the year and this gives them a chance to build some cohesiveness. So maybe, just as a group they might go out and do a service project together or do some other things that they might have never thought they could do together before," Gradoville said.
Though the students are together in homeroom on a daily basis, some of them may have not known each other at the beginning of the year and there is a possibility that further relationships could develop due to Friday's cohesive interactions.
"They realize that people they didn't really know very well have some strengths and some things to offer that they didn't know they had," Gradoville said.
Gradoville explained that the same caliber of ideals are presented in the classroom, but an understanding is more within reach with a hands-on approach.
"I can't imagine trying to teach this without actually being here. You can talk, you can watch videos, but until the kids really get out and start doing things, they don't really know what we're talking about," Gradoville said.
The discussion-filled presentations and the obstacles were reflective of the challenges that one may encounter in everyday life. However, sometimes it is easier to succeed by having a grasp on the concepts of teamwork and collaboration.
"That's true of life," Gradoville said. "It's OK to ask for help if you need it. It's OK to fail and try again. It's OK to try things two or three times before you succeed."
