What is “sophomore challenge day”? Our sophomore’s and many teachers were brought to a workshop for the day called “Challenge Day” hosted by founders of the Challenge Day movement; Yvonne and Rich Dutra-St. John. Their goal is to challenge student bodies all over the world to bond and gain trust in a series of silly team bonding games and serious conversations and activities. They bonded so many communities in their 35 year and counting foundation reaching over 2700 schools all over the world. Because of all the communities their hearts have touched they have been seen and featured in many shows like MTV, Opera, and many many more.
Inspire can be such a creative and kind school. However, everybody reaches hardships sometimes and in this case, the Sophomores have been facing some potholes in the road we call “high school” lately and have been found to need some bonding and patch work in those potholes. That’s where Challenge day comes in; to mentally challenge our students to create the school environment they want to see.
Challenge day began with the Sophomore’s walking into a fun tunnel made by teachers and counselors, where everybody began to sit beyond their peers in a circle. Rich and Yvonne begin to tell us their history and how they feel they don’t want teens to experience high school secluded and they wish for their kids and for teens all over the world to have the best opportunities to a healthy school culture. Afterwards we then did small little games like moving to different chairs, dancing, linking arms, and even learning how to properly hug somebody. These were silly and cute and everybody met new people they usually would not talk to.
After loosening up and getting to know each other better we then moved onto more serious conversations and activities where we really saw each other in a new light. One activity that really stood out to me was an activity where you cross the line when a struggle you have experienced is mentioned and if you didn’t cross the line you send love by sending the love sign in sign language. This really got the whole room filled with lots of emotions as you almost see how you and your peers experience the same struggles as you, with this there were a lot of hugging people you never thought you’d hug and letting the “waterline fall”. Another activity that really stuck to me and many of the students was one where you write a short letter to somebody you wanna say sorry too, forgive, or say thanks too. Then you would read this to a partner too me which showed a vulnerable side. After all of that we were told and encouraged to read the letter out loud if the person you wrote the letter to was in the room at the time which brought a lot of tears and emotions to the Inspire family.
Attending Sophomore Challenge day, I would really say that this helped Inspire sophomores heal and bond as a community. Just like how Yvonne and Rich touched many other schools they have touched Inspire and we got to bond, build, and learn about each other like never before, because of this growing students could be more likely to build healthier relationships which will in turn build a healthier future for themselves.