The Greatest Lesson

Outdoor ed. class was a great class. For once knowledge about different activities was invaluable; it was also the class where mountain biking was taught as well as First Aid and CPR. We snowshoed and  cross country skied. But most of all we learned to work as a group. All 25 of us became responsible for one and other and became closer as a groups because of it.

I was always a bit of an outsider in high school. Although I had lived in the area since I was little, I had gone to an out of area school and entered high school with little social footing. My shyness made me have a very small social group and my seriousness led me to prefer the quiet solitude of being alone. But outdoor ed. forced me to talk more, to share more.

The last "big" activity we did was a backpacking trip. We practiced hiking with our bags, learned how to hang them from trees, and set up groups for sleeping and food. Throughout the three day trip, we kept journals. The journals were little $1 notebooks from the dollar store that are small enough that it took up no space in our bags. The daily journalling was nice, keeping the memories from that cold, wet, and fun trip alive, but it was the the lesson after that may have been the best lesson in high school.
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We were in the library going over the trip, talking about memories and whatnot when our teacher, Mr. Froemel, instructed us put our name on the board, sit at our own table and fill out every name in our book on one page. He did the same with his notebook. We then went from table to table, filling out what we learned about each classmate, what qualities we admired and why we enjoyed being in class with them. 26 pages in those notebooks became dedicated to what made you great, fantastic, and wonderful.

The words on those pages can never change and never be misconstructed because they were not said face to face, they were not said in a way that body language could be read and someone could be embarrassed having to speak in front of the class. It was personal and sincere; the connection that was formed by that group in our last semester of high school was there, the memories were sustaining.

I will never see many of those kids again. I have moved on into university where I study history (major), Engligh (minor), and education (special program). I quietly go about my business their, working within my comfortable solitude. There is comfort there, but there is the lack of connection too. Lack of people building you up, allowing you to learn how to take a compliment.

Maybe the greatest lesson I learned in grade 12 was that we can all say nice things to each other, but the struggle is being away from our comfort zones to compliment people. The longer lasting, greater impact can come from having people write down what makes you great, so when are feeling down or overly stressed by that one assignment you can read about what is great about you.
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By some small miracle I made it through school in one piece. I was bullied badly in elementary school; emotionally scarred in high school, but yet I made it through in one piece thanks in large part to my family. I struggled through the burden of making friends, desperately trying to balance my love of being an individual with the expectations of being "normal". I still haven't mastered that one yet, but I stopped caring. I learned that people truly did enjoy being around me because of who I was.

It took until the end of grade 12. It took a 7 foot tall teacher who loved everything, including the freezing cold. It took a group of kids who went to school together since kindergarten. It took three days in the woods. It took a lot, but I learned that when you take away the fear of being laughed at or judged, people can be genuinely nice to you if they know you, it just takes a lot more bravery to say it to someone face to face than it does to write it on paper…and that can't be read when you need to read it the most.