Charlotte Baum
Ropes Course
Erin Sanborn
31 May 2019
Final Paper
There are two sides to the 361 CSAC Low Ropes Course. A participant in this course can
experience physically and mentally challenging games that consist of team building and
leadership skills. A facilitator in this course can experience a challenging day full of individual
mountains to climb from: enthusiastic, handicapped, high school students to shy, too cool for
school, third grade students. My experience with ropes course was full of teachable moments. I
got to have so much one on one time with the youth and that was my favorite part of the entire
class. I loved making connections with someone new everyday. Even on days when I couldn’t
quite get up for class, I still found myself up and at ‘em, ready to challenge children. At first, I
wasn’t completely sure how exciting playing games with kids everyday would be, but it turned
out to be way better than I could have ever hoped for. I was surrounded by the best group of
fellow facilitators. There was not a day during the weeks of May that I did not have fun. I got to
come to class and learn something new from a different group of kids everyday.
I had a great time playing the games in the book or the ones we learned and adding little
twists here and there. Having extra stipulations or sometimes less, made the game seem new and
even more fun than it was before. Mentally challenging games are good to change around
because sometimes they are pretty hard. Some things that concerned me about the students was
attitudes. With the special needs students, I always went home smiling because they got the
biggest kick out of most of the games we played. There were students that had no idea the fun
that they were missing out on because of a bad attitude. When students did participate, I think
they got to experience the games the way they were meant to be experienced. Teams that put in
the time to figure out the answer to a challenging game, always got the most out of the point of
that game.
On our first day we had to work with special needs kids. I had never worked with special
needs people before and I was nervous. Little did I know, that over the course of one week I
would eventually wish everyday to facilitate the special needs students. I was so sure that I
would love the third graders and when they arrived, it was like I was the claw to the aliens in Toy
Story. One of my favorite groups turned out to be the middle schoolers. Middle school humor is
so funny to me. This discovery will help me to decide what age group I would like to teach. I
think I would have a big positive impact on the middle school community and that is thanks to
this class.
Over May term, I learned that most people younger than me, want to do things exactly
like I do. Whatever I do is going to influence the youth. It’s so important to realize that
everything you do and say will be reflected in your pupils. The youth do not take cuss words
lightly until the college student is cussing up a storm on a Tuesday in broad daylight. If I could
change myself to make the people that I influence better, I would take away my sarcasm. I am
extremely sarcastic and it sometimes comes off harsh. There was one day that this kid could not
understand campfire. Everyone had lost their patience and were basically giving him the answer.
I was confused because I thought he was being obnoxious and pretending to not understand to
waste time and be annoying. Me, being the sarcastic person I am says, “You can not be serious,”.
He looked at me for a little bit and laughed again but there was a moment int here when I knew
he actually did not understand. After seeing that faint look on his face, all I felt was guilt. I
probably blew out the fire that lit his intelligence hungry head. I think that was a day that
changed me completely. I learned to give people a chance before (jokingly) shutting them down
and falling into a rude response habit. I wanted to push him and make him find the answer
himself. I wish I had done something to make him want the same thing.
I would modify the course and give it endless spending money. It would be nice to have
some cool equipment for the kids to use. Before the course started, I would want everyone to
know that the type of attitude that they bring to class will reflect in the attitudes of the students. I
didn’t realize how greatly my attitude affected the student’s. I figured that I could half-ass my
attitude and it would be fine but no.
I would recommend this class to other students because despite the lessons I learned in
class, I met new friends that loved the class as much as I did. The lessons learned in class will
stay with me forever and I am so grateful. This course is absolutely meeting its mission because I
think part of the mission is teach and be taught. I learned more from the kids in this class than I
learned my freshman year of college. I think that was the biggest success I got from the class as
well because there is no way I would have learned so many things in a lecture hall. I got so many
hands on experiences.
I benefitted the most from this course because I got to go through at least a thousand
students and study their reactions and emotions during the games we played. I had so much fun
in just one month of class. I wouldn’t trade the experiences I got during this CSAC for the rest of
my LAI’s filled.
