It Was A Challenge; It Will Be A Challenge

Today, we are hosting the second of our two "Challenge Days". This is an opportunity for nearly 100 of our high school students and 25 staff members (each day) to participate in activities sponsored by the Challenge Day organization. You may have heard of them before, as they have been featured on Oprah on at least two different occasions.

I was lucky enough to be involved yesterday, and to say the least, it was an inspirational experience. The facilitators from CA warned us that it would be a 'roller coaster' day, filled with highs and lows, and they were true to their word.

We were engaged in a wide variety of activities, so many that by the end of the day my energy was zapped. Students saw staff members do things they never dreamed, and staff saw students in a very different light. We laughed together and we played together and knocked down barriers along the way. It was an openness I have rarely seen in a school facility, and holds hope for long-lasting change.

The basic message is this...there are countless occasions where people are mistreated. This ranges from racist remarks, to homophobic harassment, to comments made about the differences in clothes we wear. We observe it often in school settings, yet we seldom do anything about it. We rarely show the courage to step up and stop the nonsense.

As a result of the activities, participants quickly discover that we are more alike than different, and that each of us have crosses to bear. But we were also taught that we can improve our lives by supporting one another and appreciating those differences.

It is up to us what happens next. The mantra for Challenge Day is to be the change. Unfortunately, we are limited to only 200 students this calendar year, or about 12% of our student body.

Some parents have asked me how the students were selected. Teachers made recommendations with the intent of selecting a very diverse group. We specifically strived to make sure that each diverse population at South was represented, from the skateboarders, to the geeks, to the jocks. We did the same for our ethnic population and attempted to select a group that represented our diversity.

There were students that came rather unwillingly, while others with a strong desire to participate were left out. We wish it could be different. We are hopeful we can continue this activity in subsequent years, but it will be dependent on both future funding and the availability of facilitators.

To sum it up, we laughed a lot, and we cried a lot. Although many hearts were laid bare at some point during the day, the facilitators made sure everyone was properly nurtured prior to leaving. Their talent and experience with this type of emotion was readily evident.

For me personally, yesterday was a challenge. Emotions were pretty raw at certain points of the day, but I am a better person today than I was last week. Now all of us have to carry the momentum forward, and that will be a challenge.