Mendenhall Builds Community on Campus

The students and staff at Mendenhall Middle School participated in an amazing day of community-building and fun activities during their Field Day event this past Friday.

It was so much fun I almost wanted to go back to middle school.

The main focus of the event was an anti-bullying message, delivered through lessons in individual classroom sessions. The lessons used by teachers were taken from the website No Name-Calling Week, which was inspired by the popular young adult novel “The Misfits” by James Howe.

The outdoor sessions were organized by the Feet First Entertainment group, and consisted of a variety of fun team-building activities that engaged the students and required them to work together. Students collaborated with their peers to solve large puzzles; raced to create words with letters printed on small balls in a crazy twist on Scrabble; and formed teams to alternately launch and attempt to catch rubber chickens.

Students were grouped together alphabetically, which meant that most were challenged to work together with peers they hadn’t worked with before.

With energetic music blasting out over the blacktop and field area it was hard to sit still, even for someone my age.

Throughout the day nearly 900 Mendenhall students rotated through the various activities, which culminated in the whole school attending a rally on the plaza. The event was sponsored by the Mendenhall PTSA.

According to Principal Susan Sambuceti, “The focus of Field Day is on building community and making school a safe place through anti-bullying messages. Education is our number one priority, obviously. But in addition to that, the most important thing we can do for kids is to help them feel accepted and safe, and to encourage them to have fun as well.”

From the huge smiles on the faces of the students I observed, I think Field Day was a definite success.