Exercise teaches students to support one another
HOULTON, Maine — Houlton Southside School students participated in a “Team Building” Day Sept. 6 through the support of staff and the Maine Army National Guard.
“All of the educational research out there tells us that building positive relationships with students is one of the single most important factors in student school success,” said Southside Principal Tiffany Karnes.
At the end of last year, the Houlton Southside School staff discussed ways to build more positive relationships among the students and team building in the classrooms.
“We decided that we would like to have a team building day at the beginning of the school year to start building these relationships,” added Karnes.
The next task for the staff was finding someone or a group to help oversee the building activities.
“We wanted our teachers to really be involved in the activities with their students and not worry about running an activity,” Karnes explained.
Then someone mentioned the Army National Guard.
“One of our parents is a Guard member,” said Karnes. “He was very excited to help us out and we really appreciate the time and effort that they put into this day. The students and teacher had a blast and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
That parent was Dave Carpenter.
“As members of the Maine Army National Guard, it was our honor to support our local school in the event,” said Carpenter. “Team building is something we work on every day and to see these girls and boys work together to accomplish their tasks was inspiring to us all.”
In response to being asked to participate in the event, Carpenter, along with Sgt. Jessie Rodweller and from the 262 Engineer Company,(Westbrook); Staff Sgt. Nicholas Quint, Sgt. Micheal Quint and PFC Jason Smith from the 185th Engineer Support company (Caribou); and SPC Benjamin Boutilier from the 488th MP Company (Houlton) all helped with the activities.
“I think the event was a great success for the school and the kids,” said Carpenter.
Karnes referred to an article from Robert J. Marzano that speaks to team building, visit the following web address to read more on team building: www.ascd.org.
