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Posted by:
Nelson Beaudoin
K-12 Classroom teacher
Kennebunk, ME
Topic:
lessons learned from "Challenge Day"
Message:
A few years ago, we instituted a program called "Challenge Night" (now "Challenge Day") to get students thinking about how to change the culture of violence in the school. Our school previously reported hundreds of fights each year. While this program was very successful at first at getting students involved in making a difference in the school, in its third year it didn't go as well.
I I left at the end of this third Challenge Day just demoralized. This was awful; I wanted to help these kids, and they think I am the biggest jerk in the world for having a program like this. But what it was--and it shows I think the how tenuous some of these things are--there were just a couple planning issues that didn't go well. We miscalculated a couple of things. We did it during the school day, we did it for six hours, it was too long, we brought in another program about learning disabilities that kind of diluted the Challenge Day thing. We did it in a setting where we didn't have good microphones and good technology. So it just bombed. So again, all of these things are a kind of trial and error type of thing, and you hope you get it right. When you do, you celebrate, and when you hit it wrong, you try to figure out how to change it.
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