RMS students learn leadership, communication skills
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RONAN — In a spirit of community service, the students at the Ronan Middle School found themselves out of the classroom and in the field, participating in a wide array of community-based activities May 26. The event was called One Book, One Community, and for the eighth year in a row, RMS students learned valuable lessons in teamwork, community service and communication throughout the sunny, spring day.
“Sometimes with kids this age, it’s all about taking and me,” Ronan Middle School Librarian Janey Salomon said. “But this is about giving back.”
Salomon orchestrated the event, basing the day’s activities on themes from a book called “Seedfolks,” written by Paul Fleischman.
“Seedfolks” tells a sweet story of a girl who plants a few lima bean seeds in a vacant lot in her neighborhood. The seemingly insignificant action sparks her neighbors to start working on the lot as a community, turning it into a blooming garden. The new garden inspires hope within the once broken neighborhood. All middle school students were given a copy of the book to read prior to the One Book, One Community event.
One of the day’s activities included a quilting session with the Mission Mountain Quilt Guild. Students learned a little bit about the history of quilting, before drawing on squares that would be ironed on to material and patched together to form 13 very diverse quilts.
“It was interesting to learn about the different types of quilts,” RMS student Moriah Arlint said. “You can design anything you want and you can put a lot of your personality in the quilt. It’s like an art.”
The quilts made by the students with the help of the quilt guild will be donated to various organizations throughout the community.
Following the quilting stations, students learned about community organizations such as 4-H and Future Farmers of America. Leaders in the organizations taught students about different types of show animals and how to show them in competitions.
“We are just trying to show organizations within the community that they can be part of,” Salomon said.
On the softball field across from the school, groups of students were given seemingly simple challenges to complete. The challenges were designed to reach across social barriers and make the entire group of students work as a team. It also promoted leadership skills within the individual students.
In all of the challenges, students received minimal instructions and minimal guidance in completing the tasks. One challenge consisted of the entire group turning over a tarp, using only their feet, while standing on it. In another challenge the group attempted to place a “helium” stick on the ground using only their fingertips. The pressure from all the kids’ fingertips made the simple task of placing the light stick on the ground extremely difficult.
“If the whole team doesn’t work as a team, it’s impossible,” RMS Intervention Specialist Brandy Couture said. “But for the most part, they do well. They’ve come up with some interesting strategies.”
Other activities included a lesson on native plants in Bockman Park. The previous year, the middle school students planted native perennials in a garden in the park. This year Janet Sucha and Dawn Thomas lectured on the different native plants.
Students also gleaned information from seminars on sacred tobacco use within the native community.
“We learned about different tobacco,” Arlint said. “Not all tobacco is bad, they used it in ceremonies.”
Arlint also enjoyed learning about the different types of native plants in the garden in the park.
“I’ve always had a thing for growing things,” Arlint added.
Students also participated in indoor activities that focused on positive attributes of each student. They worked on word collages that described their personalities and collaborated on poems that were made from excerpts from the book.
“It’s been real positive,” Principal Jim Gillhouse said. “The opportunity is there to really discuss the issues in the book.”
Overall, the event was a fun, interesting learning experience for all 270 middle school students, as each child was given the chance to examine core community values such as service, leadership and teamwork.
