Getting A Fresh Start Cda High School Newcomers Make Connection With Staff, Upper-Classmen At Workshop
If visitors to Coeur d’Alene High School accidentally stumbled into the gymnasium balcony Thursday, they might have wondered if the place had gone haywire.
There was the superintendent of schools, the chief of police and a school board member zooming around the room with their arms outstretched like airplanes, and singing Frank Sinatra songs with their eyes crossed and derrieres extended at extreme angles.
There they were, telling 140 high school students what color underwear they were wearing.
The veneer of absolute silliness belied the seriousness of Freshman Connection, a daylong workshop for high school freshmen.
Superintendent Doug Cresswell, Police Chief Dave Scates and board member Wanda Quinn were among about 15 adults who made fools of themselves, along with a dozen student leaders and a third of the high school’s freshmen class.
The point, as moderator Suze Rutherford made clear, was to build trust, make friends and help students be themselves.
Along with building index card castles and keeping a large ball afloat above a sea of hands, were frank discussions of drugs, loneliness, violence and suicide.
By teaching about making good friends and good choices, school officials hope Freshman Connection will help lower school drop-out rates and steer students away from drugs and alcohol.
The series of workshops cost students one day of classes and the school district about $6,000 of its federal drug education money. But many students and adults said it was time and money well-spent.
“It gives them security and confidence so they can put energy back into school work,” said parent Carol Davis.
While some adults are preaching that schools should leave parenting to parents, Rutherford argued that kids need moral support at school more than ever.
“We live in a mean world and it’s getting meaner,” Rutherford told the student and adult leaders of the workshop. “It’s more popular to be bad than good.”
In the ‘90s, she said, the traditional social safety nets are disappearing. More and more kids turn to their peers for help and advice.
“Peer support groups don’t have the wisdom they need,” she said. “We’re asking them to raise themselves.”
Rutherford travels the country and Canada as a consultant to schools to help them teach kids skills for “resiliency,” the ability to bounce back after hardship.
Communication and teamwork were two of those skills put to use as students and adults built interconnected castles out of index cards without speaking.
Teamwork was essential also in the game of “Gertie ball,” which is played with a soft, wobbly ball and requires that players sit on the floor.
The first few attempts to keep the ball aloft were foiled by uncooperative spikes to the floor, or by Rutherford’s hoarse voice shouting “bun infraction.”
The first game lasted 10 seconds. By early afternoon, the ball stayed up 10 minutes and 33 seconds, which Rutherford declared a world record.
Though a handful of boys hung back and didn’t fully participate, most of the students seemed alert and entertained.
Everyone fell silent as Rutherford told true hard-luck stories - one of an overweight, lonely boy who committed suicide and another of an abused child who wound up living on the streets.
The students grilled a panel of upper-classmen, asking them why the seniors threw eggs at them at a recent assembly and why seniors stuff freshmen in trash cans.
“Some of us are jerks,” said one guilty-looking senior. “It was an egg of love.”
“It’s not like we don’t like you guys,” explained another. “It’s a traditional thing.”
Rutherford suggested that the freshmen not perpetuate such hurtful traditions, and finished the workshop with an assignment.
“Together we’re going to create a wonderful future, but we need to start now. That’s your homework.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo