The Donnelly Scholars of the Class of 2028 took part in their own “outdoor adventure”
on the fields behind SJR on October 16. Mr. Ed Kennedy, who directs the “Outdoor Adventure”
program at the Marist Brother Retreat Center in Esopus, New York, took his show “on the road”
with a stop in Montvale.
In all, the Donnelly Scholars participated in seven different games and activities, that
included finding their way through a maze while blindfolded, moving a golf ball two hundred
feet using three-foot sections of pipe, using a rope swing to land all sixteen team-mates onto six
hula hoops without touching the ground, and setting a new record checking off thirty numbers
in sequence in a chalk-box circle.
“The rope swing and hula hoops taught me that you have to sometimes take a step back
and realize who is struggling and help them out,” said Justin Yeh. “You can’t just continue on
doing something that you think is fun, and totally ignore the people who may be struggling with
the activity.”
Classmate Sean Guy said, “I learned from the blindfold rope maze to not let my pride get
in the way, and to ask for help. This lesson is valuable as Mr. Kennedy repeated numerous times
that we could ask for help, so there really was no shame in doing so. I learned from moving the
golf ball through the pipe, that it takes talking and communicating with everyone in order to
create something great.”
“The last activity was a good lesson for me because at the beginning I thought I was the
only one that knew what I was doing,” said Russell Romond. “I would be yelling at my
classmates trying to get them to follow my lead, and would get very frustrated when they
would mess up. I learned that I needed to let other people talk, and not try be so focused on
trying to get everyone to do it my way.”
The games, as Kennedy pointed out several times, may be fun, but are intended as
metaphors for real-life situations, and the decisions and emotions they generate. Along the
way, the group had to work as a team, communicate effectively, think logically about how to
approach a particular challenge, learn to ask for help and handle their own frustration and
disappointment when they were unable to solve a particular problem effectively.
Valuable lessons for everyone.