About a year or two ago, my buddy Jack kept after me for years to come out for Peer Leadership, which is an event that happens twice a year in the Spring and Fall. This is a School sponsored event where about 45 kids from various grade levels 9-11 accompany a handful of teachers and head out to camp (Pine Valley, near Elwood City) for the weekend. The kids even get to call us teachers by our first names for the weekend, and the atmosphere is positive and no put downs are allowed. This was my 2nd time going, and I had a blast.
While there, the students are involved in all sorts of activities. Some of the cool things we do are "Steal the Bacon" in the mud pit, where kids get their number called, and have to dive into the mud to try and play tug of war with the inner-tube. We also do all sorts of discussion groups about peer pressure, self respect building, bullying, put-downs, and other kinds of stuff. My buddy, X-Karns City Teacher, Denny Barger created something called the
Starfish program, which has been enacted in over 240+ Pa. schools, and he's spoken to over 100,000 kids across the state of Pa. He was one of the original teachers that enacted this program.
The next day, we head over to the Geneva University ropes course. There, the kids are taught how to work together as a team to overcome obsticles. The weekend is dedicated to helping kids cope with growing up in today's world, and usually by the last meeting of the weekend, kids each take a turn standing up in front of the group and have great things to say about themselves and each other.
Its one of the more rewarding things I get to do as a teacher working with kids, watching them grow in just 2 days. Then we turn them back over to the high school and hope they remember the Peer Leadership life lessons, and experiences.
Well, its that time of year again. Ghosts, Goblins, and Farrell kids are on the prowl for candy. Here we see Jack Sparrow, a Spider Enchantress, and Bat Man in their spooky outfits. Luckily the rain let up last Friday night so the kiddies didn't get soaked. They scored big on the candy collecting, as their Mom drove around the town and returned home after an hour or so. I stayed home to pass out candy to the neighbors, which seem to be fewer and fewer each year.
We also have the tradition of carving the family pumpkin, which the kids design themselves. We put a candle inside of it, and set it out on our doorstep. The kids also have their own small pumpkins which they grew themselves in the garden this past summer. They'll get around to painting scary faces on those, and have them set out on the step as well.
