By Sara Ballenger
 Sara Ballenger/Town crier |
Students at Alta Vista High School are willing to go out on a limb, or a high rope for that matter.
Sixty-five students from the continuation school in the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District participated in “Leap Ahead Leadership Training and High Ropes Course,” put on by the Challenge Learning Center on the grounds of Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, Nov. 14.
The Challenge Learning Center, based in Mountain View, is a non-profit organization that works on team and trust building, leadership and group problem solving, said Anne Leahy Jones, development director.
Students are broken up into teams, which then participate in four team-building activities, facilitated by Alta Vista leadership class students and supervised by the Challenge Learning Center staff.
“Every activity is started with a brief description - A, B and C,” said John Figueroa, advisor to the leadership class at Alta Vista, which he likens to an associated student council.
“They must figure out what to do for D and E. For example, there is a jump-rope activity. The facilitator might say ‘two plus two.’ They have to figure out what two plus two means.”
When the students make a mistake in figuring out the riddle, facilitators say, “scratch,” so they know to try another idea, Figueroa said.
The highlights of the course are two “high ropes courses” in which students first learn about rock-climbing harnesses, ropes and safety.
Students then climb a pole and walk across a tight rope, and perform a task like touching the pole at the other end, while their harness, attached to safety ropes, is being held by fellow students. The students then lower the harnessed student down to the ground.
“Everyone is taught exactly what they need to do,” Figueroa said. “The people on the ground are responsible for the person on the high rope. If one person fails, the whole thing doesn’t work.”
Students are quick to realize that teamwork is the key to success, Figueroa added.
“They slowly figure it out,” he said. “They finally understand that a lot of it is putting your heads together, working as a group and being successful with that. They can’t argue, put each other down or be in disagreement. These kids are getting along so well together.”
Being outside of the traditional classroom setting and challenging students’ comfort zones within reasonable and safe limits are a hallmark of the kind of education Challenge Learning Center is about, Jones said.
“Our goal is to build resilient youth using experiential education,” he said. “Resiliency helps people rebound from adversity and the challenges life throws at you.”
Figueroa hopes his students pick up on that and other important life skills while participating in the course.
“This is a program where students can work and collaborate together,” Figueroa said. “At Alta Vista, we try to apply all of our curriculum and the way we do things to the way students are going to be treated in life, to make it relevant.”
For Senior Clare Foord, she learned more than she thought she would.
“If you stay open, you learn things you didn’t know you could do,” she said. “You are proud of yourself that you did it.”
Fellow student Joanna Fernandez, who is in the leadership class and acted as an activity facilitator for other students, enjoyed the sense of community.
“You learn that you can trust people you don’t know that well,” she said. “You feel closer to them because they helped you out. It really makes you closer as a school.”
For more information, call the Challenge Learning Center at 949-2011.
