Newton South High School students use high-element challenge

course to build trust, relationships

Wicked Local Staff Photo by David Gordon

Newton South High School sophomores Ohad Levy-Or, left, and Sam Mansour attempt to cross the catwalk, a part
of the school’s new challenge course. Adventure learning encourages students to work together and problem solve,
even if they are 30 feet in the air.

By Laura Paine/Staff Writer

Wicked Local Newton
Posted Nov 02, 2010 @ 12:36 PM

Newton — First Newton South sophomore Sam Mansour had to climb the 30-foot telephone
pole. Then he had to walk on the narrow catwalk and get past his classmate without falling
off.
“It’s pretty scary up here,” Mansour shouted as he asked his belay team, a group of his
peers, to tighten the slack.
Mansour and Ohad Levy-Or were the first two students in the wellness class to problem-
solve from 30 feet in the air how to successfully move around each other without tumbling to
the ground.
“It’s scary when you get up there because you don’t realize how high it is until you are
actually on the [catwalk],” Mansour said. “The hardest part is really crossing with the other
person. You don’t have anywhere you can safely put your weight.”
Alan Rotatori, the school’s wellness director, said the ropes course helps teach students
how to cooperate, trust and problem solve one-on-one, as well as in group settings. These
steps are a part of the caring classroom model, which includes ground activities that teach
students how to do all of those things while balancing on the catwalk with a classmate or
struggling on the pirate’s bridge.
“Each time you go up the ladder, you incorporate the rung before it and hopefully, by the
end, you have them in the challenge part really functioning at a high level so they can do all
those steps in a particular element or activity that may be difficult and emotionally draining,”
Rotatori said.
One of the main reasons the course was built at South is because it teaches valuable life
skills that cannot be learned in the core curricula studies. Rotatori referenced an instance at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where graduates complained that, while they
received an excellent education, they didn’t have any social or networking skills.
“They put Project Adventure, adventure education, as an avenue to learn social skills and
networking skills,” Rotatori said. “It is a graduation requirement for MIT students. I think
that’s cool. It’s one thing to be smart and have a base of knowledge in your studies, but how
you relate that to other people is probably more important in our society than anything else.
Adventure education does that.”
Before students make the climb, they learn the language of safe climbing and how to belay,
or anchor, their classmate during the activity. Sophomore Zuzana Skvarkova said the trust
activities and training she did with her class really made a difference.
“The first day I didn’t know half of the people [in class], but from this, you have to trust
people, so you get a different connection with all your classmates,” Skvarkova said. “It’s
definitely a valuable experience, and it makes wellness a lot more fun.”
Skvarkova was one of the first to cross the pirate’s bridge, which is a series of crossed
ropes that sway and swing along with the person, or people, crossing it. She said she had to
trust the person next to her and problem-solve with them. Even if Skvarkova fell, she said she
knew she was in good hands.
“We did some trust falls in the beginning of class,” she said. “I knew they would have me if
I fell. I recommend that everybody do it. This would be great for team bonding and sports.”
 Skvarkova’s recommendation is one of the ways Rotatori hopes to use the challenge course
in the future. He believes that it is a good way to connect people together that may not have
common interest.
“I like making teams when they’re not with their friends,” he said. “I try to break them up a
little bit so they are working with people in their school community that they’re not usually
hanging around with and trying to build relationships that way, too. I envision, after a couple
of years, that we try to use our background experience in this course to maybe make the
relationships in the faculty a little bit better here at school.”
Rotatori said the possibilities are endless now that South finally has the challenge course,
which was funded by a $1 million grant awarded to the Newton Public School system in 2008
by the United States Department of Education as part of the Carol M. White Physical
Education Program.
“The bottom line is a functioning community,” he said. “You use these types of experiences
with equipment to try to bring out those types of experiences. It’s a really safe environment
and the possibilities are kind of endless.”

Laura Paine can be reached at lpaine@cnc.com.

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