I would say one of the biggest things I did this year and one of the things that I really am the most proud of thus far, is 8th Grade Retreat. Every year the 8th graders have an overnight retreat at Kamp Kuper (about 45min-1hr away from San Diego) which is planned by the Augustinian Volunteer at the school. I mainly planned the entire retreat on my own. Anne helped as well and thankfully Mike came along to help with the boys.
I was extremly nervous going into the two days ahead. Not only because I was in charge of 27, 13 year olds who are pretty crazy, but also because these kids have been looking foward to this retreat for most of their elementary grades. All they were talking about from the moment we got back from Christmas break was how excited they were for this retreat.
The retreat was like your typical retreat, except a little shorter and a little less intense seeing as they are only 13 years old. The retreat ran from Wednesday morning until Thursday afternoon. Wednesday they arrived, we started with the ice breakers. Then went into the Friends talk from Mike and Family talk from Anne with small groups following both of them.
Me with my small group
They then had confession and mass. All of that was followed by a photo scavenger hunt with their small group...i think that is what got them really excited about everything we did, finally "bonding" with their groups (my group won in the end btw!)
My group doing on of the pictures on the scavanger hunt...a conga line! They were smart and thought smallest to tallest...gabe, justin, esteban, sebastian, reyna, lillian, marisa, sal and will.
At night we did some retreat like activities. The "reach out and tap someone" game (yes, for you merrimackers reading this I had to change 'touch' to 'tap' because they can't handle anything slightly inappropriate) which took a bit to get into but ended up working really well. The 8th grade teacher and I were discussing how the game will probably work better with more mature classes in the future. We then did the dream circle chain (yes, I took it from MORE!). I had them doing dream stuff in computer class so they were prepared. They had to write their realistic dream on one side of a strip of paper and their unrealistic dream on the other side. We then connected them all together and the chain is now hanging in their classroom which is nice. Following all of that they recieved letters from their family and friends which was always great, and since they had never been on a retreat before they weren't expecting it.
Night time was not nearly as crazy as I thought it was going to be. Anne, Mike and myself were responsible for staying up until they all went to bed. Anne and I went to bed at 5 and woke up at 7. Mike went to bed at 6 in the boys cabin. I was slightly worried they were going to go crazy because all they were talking about for weeks was the pranks they were going to play. But, they didn't end up playing any and the girls just ended up trying to stay as late as they can. They listened to music, danced, played games and talked about boys and kissing for the night. It was cute to hear all of them...brought us back ten years.
Thursday I gave the God talk. I felt like it actually went pretty well and they got soemthing out of it which was nice. They exchanged gifts and did affirmations afterwards and then we gave them the chance to ask us questions they wanted to about high school, college, ect and finally headed home!
Mike, Anne, Pat Motz (the 8th grade teacher) and I with all the 8th graders
I think the two days were a great realization for me. They are a lot older then I see them and at the same time a lot younger then I see them. I saw everything that they are going through at such a young age...family difficulties, caring a lot and struggling with grades, and even actually having a strong faith in God at such a young age. They are a lot younger then I see them because they cared a lot more about free time and were constantly talking throughout the two days which made me see how they wanted to go for the fun, not always just the retreat stuff.
From what I hear though, they seem to have loved the retreat...I don't know if it was because they got to miss three days of school or because they actually really enjoyed what we did, but at least they still had fun. They are still typical 13 year olds. Some of the other teachers asked if they did any growing up at all over the two days. I say yes. They may still be mean to everyone, including me, but at least they are mean kids who actually semi like me now!
