Party with a purpose

Baker High School juniors Trent Taylor (left, in purple shirt) and Danny O’Neal (center, in gray/red sweatshirt) danced along with adults, including teacher Adriene Bachman, right, during Monday’s Challenge Day event.

By LISA BRITTON
For the Baker City Herald

This looks like one big dance party, adults and kids movin’ to the music blasting in this gymnasium.

And it is a party — but one with a serious goal.

This is Challenge Day, a six-hour workshop held Monday that brings together students and adults to instigate change in their school.

Two leaders, Ev Villaseñor and Gina Pernini, came from Concord, Calif., to lead Challenge Day with 76 juniors from Baker High School and 19 local adults representing BHS, service clubs, MayDay, and parents of students.

They need one adult for every four to five students.

“Challenge Day is an incredibly intense workshop,” Villaseñor told the adults before the students arrived. “We’ll be yelling, screaming and we’ll definitely be dancing.”

The yelling and screaming are the positive kind, applause and cheers that welcome the students into the gym at North Baker school.

And at the cue “Now we’re going to play a game!” the adults were told to leap into the air and make as much noise as possible.

“Like you just won the lotto — that’s how I want you to act,” Villaseñor said.

The goal? To celebrate every student who walks in the door.

The Challenge Day vision is this: “That every child lives in a world where they feel safe, loved and celebrated.”

It started in 1987, and has gone international.

Baker High’s first Challenge Day was with last year’s junior class.

“They are emotionally ready for the day, and then they’re the leaders for the next year,” said Annie Fale, who organized the day along with Michele McCauley, upon the recommendation of Lavelle Cornwell, a principal in Ontario.

The juniors sign up to participate.

“We had Challenge Day last year, so there was some buzz about it,” Fale said.

Throughout Challenge Day, the students and adults talk about common issues found at school — gossip, rumors, teasing, cliques, harassment, stereotypes, racism, sexism, bullying, violence.

The list goes on and on.

During the workshop, the adults connect with students in small “family groups,” taking turns finishing two statements:

• “If you really knew me, you would know....”

• “If you really, really knew me, you would know...”

Everyone is encouraged to share, youth and adult.

“I want you to share what it’s like to be you,” Villaseñor told the adults. “Take a risk. Share something that is really you. They don’t know that we went through the same issues.”

Everything discussed during the day is confidential except for three things: if they are hurting themselves, if they are hurting someone else, or if someone is hurting them.

If these revelations surface during a workshop, the adult facilitators alert the leaders at the end of the day.

“We’ll get them whatever support they need,” Villaseñor said.

The first hour of Challenge Day is packed with icebreakers to get the students laughing and mingling with those they might not know.

In the first crazy game, everyone had to rush across the room to find a new seat. (Imagine musical chairs with about 100 people.) The last one caught standing joined Villaseñor in the middle of the circle for a mini dance party.

Embarrassing? Maybe — but Villaseñor danced alongside them, and everyone shouted encouragement.

Before launching into the crazy icebreaker activities, Pernini gave the students three promises:

1. “We’re going to have fun in here today.”

2. “You need to be yourself. For some of us, every day we go to school we hide,” she said. “Laugh as loud as you want, smile as big as you want to smile.”

3. “You can’t do this wrong. You can’t screw up Challenge Day.”

“In fact,” she said, “we believe each person in this room deserves equal respect.”

And the day is a chance to meet new people, to perhaps dispel some stereotypes.

“There could be some amazing folks in this room you don’t know yet,” she said.

Challenge Day challenges students to “Be the Change” by reinforcing three steps:

• Notice

• Choose

• Act

Pernini began by sharing her own story from her high school days when she saw fellow students get bullied, get abused.

“Here’s what Gina did: I sat back, watched it all go down,” she said. “If I could go back and change things, I would.

“I’ve learned since then we’re powerful, all by ourselves.”

Those three steps help make changes.

First, you have to notice what’s going on around you.

Then you choose how to respond, and follow that up with action.

The motto “Be the change” didn’t start with Challenge Day, she told the group — Ghandi is credited with that: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“If we have the courage, we can change things for people around us,” Pernini said.

Throughout the day, the family groups gather to talk, and culminates with “Cross the Line,” when students are asked to cross the line in response to a question (Have they been teased? Bullied?).

Suddenly they see how many others have been through the same experience.

“When people cross the line, they see their school in an all new way,” Villaseñor said. “Live the life of your dreams. Be the passion of your school.”

Fale said she can see a difference after Challenge Day.

“Even today, there was this huge energy,” she said Tuesday evening. “The kids are kinder, and ready for the next step.”

That step is a “Be the Change” team, which can foster student leaders in the school who can also help at the next Challenge Day.

The workshop affects everyone involved, in some way.

“It has made me a better teacher and a stronger parent,” Fale said.