Challenge Day at Sewanhaka

Recently, Challenge Day came to Sewanhaka High School. Challenge Day is a daylong experiential workshop for 7th-12th graders. The goal of Challenge Day is for “participants to experience powerful love and belonging, connect across lines of difference and move toward creating the culture they want in their school.” But, did Challenge Day really “carve an emotional connection between peers? A few students had some thoughts.

 Eighth grader, Naveen Sam Chandapillai said “It was mid. The crying [was weird]. I didn’t like it.” Much of the student body reported that many students were emotional during Challenge Day, and said it made them feel uncomfortable. Another eighth grader, Aaron Mogrovejo Chuchuca said, “Literally everybody said it was mid. Very few people said it was fun.” 

Some had different complaints about Challenge Day. Eighth-grader Leiah Guirand said, “Some of the transitions between activities were very jarring.” Thomas Percy, another eighth grader, elaborated on this, “ One moment, everyone was singing Keyshia Cole and having a good time. The next [moment], we were having a serious conversation about homelessness and sexual assault.” Leiah added, “It’s not that those topics shouldn’t be discussed, I just feel that they should have paced the event better.” They were referring to the moment where the speakers played ‘Love’ by Keyshia Cole right before doing to ‘Crossing the Line’ activity, where students had to cross to the other side of the room if a scenario read by the speakers applied to them (ie. “One or both of my parents have passed away.”) 

This isn’t the first time this organization had an event at our school. Earlier this year, the seventh graders had a period-long version of Challenge Day. Seventh grader Jade Gomez said “It was boring. But I did almost win at ‘Musical Chairs’,” alluding to the ‘jarring transitions’ that these assemblies seemed to have. Many students decided to not go to assembly, despite the free food. One eighth grader, Ethan Harichand, said “I just didn’t see the point of going. Plus, the video said that we would have to hug people, and I wasn’t going to do that.”