Confidence Course

Yesterday was our first day of teacher in-service at Komachin Middle School, and the administration planned a ropes course day out at Gig Harbor for us. The entire faculty went and engaged in a day of team building and trust establishing activities. We were randomly split into smaller groups of 11 and 12. My group had everyone from a librarian to math teachers to special ed teachers. It was a great chance to meet people I wouldn't normally work with.

The first challenge was this giant deck balanced on a fulcrum. The idea was was to get all twelve people onto the deck without tipping it. Then we divided ourselves onto the outermost planks without tipping. You get the point. We had to lose the personal boundaries and cling to each other. Needless to say, we weren't strangers for long.


In the next activity, all twelve of us had to balance ourselves on a 1 foot by 1 foot square box for the time it took to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Look at us crammed in there! Thick as thieves, we were.
Here we put our smarts together to figure out how to make it from landing to landing without touching the ground. The engineery/mathy brains on the team figured it out pretty quickly.

These are the other two new girls I'll be working with in House One. On the left is DeAnna Miller, a fellow English and Social Studies teacher, and on the right is Tricia Melton: Math. I already feel like these are my sisters. We're learning the ropes together. -And on Monday that was literally.

What a cool idea for team building. I've never heard of a school incorporating this kind of activity, and it sure beat the heck out of sitting in lectures all day. (Which is what we did today).
I know I can depend on these people professionally, and if we're ever trying to cross the Amazon River with only three little pieces of wood, I think we'll be okay too.