Junior High Retreat at Silver Lake
What do grade 7 and 8’s do while high school students write exams? Play in the snow! With treat bags in hand and cell phones left at home, we loaded on to the golden bus for an old fashioned road trip to Silver Lake Mennonite Camp. Well, to be more accurate, the first day was a bit slushy. Despite good effort and lots of matches, not a single marshmallow was roasted by the first group on the Survival Skills elective. The second group showed good learning by taking dry wood with them from the dining lodge. A trek through the woods on snowshoes is a beautiful thing, and broomball is just plain crazy fun!
At Silver Lake, meals are a time of working and eating together, and thinking about our impact on the wider world. Cabin groups took turns setting and clearing food, and we learned to pay attention to food waste by weighing uneaten food at the end of each meal. It was encouraging to see how much waste can be eliminated simply by being thoughtful about taking the amount of food needed for eating.
Of course there has to be a collaborative game! But this one started out with an illusion of competition. The game of “How much can you win? “ tapped into our natural desire to get more through competition – by working to ensure personal gain regardless of impact on others. Students realized (some earlier than others) that individual gain is actually more likely when the whole group works to benefit all members equally. This realization is perhaps easier to grasp in a retreat situation, but hopefully will influence our decision-making in regular life too.
There’s something extra exciting about being outside at night, in the snow, with friends, playing a sneaky survival “you can’t catch me” kind of game. Oh, and only a few get flashlights. Maybe the real agenda was to get everyone running so much that they’d fall asleep quickly, but it was so much fun anyway!
“Really, we have to go home?” There’s always a bit of sadness about leaving such a beautiful place behind, especially when we’ve shared it with friends – students and teachers together. It’s amazing how such a short time can feel so big! Maybe it’s because we got to know each other in a different way, better, in this out-of-school experience. Another (big) drop in the bucket of helping us to experience community of our school class group.
And the bus ride home was much quieter…
submitted by Deb Baxter-Heeney, Grade 8 teacher
