By Lisa Spengler
Fear, frustration and uneasiness are a few of the feelings most teenagers encounter as they enter high school as a freshman. But at Ocean City High School on Friday, an innovative, comprehensive freshman orientation program helped to alleviate, if not eliminate, those feelings for the 2018 freshman class.
Chris Clark, a high school teacher and co-advisor with Nicole McMaster for Freshman Team Building Day, has seen the program evolve from 15 years ago.
“What started as round-table discussions, now encompasses the entire football field filled with obstacle courses and activities aimed at introducing the younger students to the upperclassmen in a positive and fun environment,” said Clark.
The program is designed to develop leadership and facilitation skills of older high school students while teaching them to provide outreach to their younger peers.
Over 300 freshmen participated in the teambuilding program on Friday. The energy was infectious as half of them poured out of the high school towards a group of cheering juniors and seniors dressed in bright red T-shirts and holding signs with what were the freshmen’s assigned group numbers.
“Juniors and seniors serve as peer leaders who are nominated by two teachers,” said Clark. “There are over 100 peer leaders. We pair three or four of the leaders with six or seven freshmen.”
The groups of leaders and freshmen are split to participate in outside activities which are spread out across the football field and adjacent parking area, and an inside assembly held in the auditorium.
Building relationships, fostering collaboration, increasing self-confidence and developing problem-solving skills are a few of the program learning objectives.
“This is awesome,” said freshman Trevor Belgrave, a recent transfer to Ocean City High School, as he lined up with five other freshmen to walk on boards mimicking a pair of skis at one of the outside activities.
Belgrave was focused and intent on the instructions of senior Danielle Donaghue, who yelled out, “left, right, left, right”
“Communication is the key to this obstacle,” said Donaghue. “There is a trick, but we don’t tell them until they’re finished.”
“I love working with kids and today is such a great day for everyone,” continued Donaghue, who will be pursuing an education degree at Mount St. Mary’s College in Maryland.
Joining Donaghue with instruction and motivation was physical education and sports medicine teacher Beth Kelly, who encouraged the freshmen as they stumbled.
One of 40 teachers participating in the orientation program, Kelly was heard cheering on the group.
“Good save with your teammates. This is not a race. Everyone is doing a great job,” said Kelly. “The key to this activity is that there are multiple solutions, just like there are multiple solutions to every problem in life.”
Ocean City’s Freshman Team Building Day is an orientation program designed for the younger students, but it ends up to be more than that. The camaraderie between the freshmen, upper classmen and teachers is inspiring as evidenced by Kelly and Donaghue.
With life-saving activities set up by the Ocean City police and fire departments, the groups were able to don goggles that simulated being visually impaired while drunk driving and were instructed on how to use a firehose to extinguish a burning object.
Lucas Goodman, age 14, slowly swerved the go-cart between orange reflective cones only to find himself still fighting the dizziness minutes later after exiting the cart.
“Don’t drink and drive. It’ll really messes you up,” said Goodman to his fellow group members Arianna Cataldo, Brooke Fiedler and Ciera James.
Demonstrating how crucial teamwork and communication is in firefighting, freshman Alana Giardina found herself being knocked to the ground with the end of a loose hose after the water pressure forced her team members to let go.
Giardina was completely soaked but in great spirits. “I didn’t realize the force of the water spraying from the hose. That was great,” she said.
Maureen Merighi, a business teacher, provided instruction for the relay race, which included hoops, bats and balls. Senior Ella Weigel provided a sense of comfort for freshman Ciera James throughout the day and during the relay obstacle course as they knew each other from the tennis team.
Freshmen are randomly selected and paired with the juniors and seniors, which made their unplanned pairing extra special for the teammates.
As the 150 freshmen were jumping, throwing and running outside, the other 150 were performing just as rigorously inside the gymnasium.
Christina Noble and Samuel Chisolm, both professional dancers, choreographers and dance instructors, brought energy and excitement to the group with a hip-hop dance educational assembly and demonstration. They discussed the origins of hip-hop and talked about life-lessons learned from hip-hop and how to use dance as a means to persevere towards one’s dreams.
The morning began with the freshmen lined up against the back wall full of trepidation and uncertainty.
But that changed when Noble and Chisolm presented a hip-hop dance routine followed by an invitation for the 150 freshmen to join in for a short hip-hop routine that included some of today’s hottest dance moves.
From the back wall of the gymnasium, to the middle of the gym floor, the entire group was dancing, laughing, building relationships, fostering collaboration, increasing self-confidence and establishing friendships – all program objectives for Freshman Team Building Day.
