By AMY McCARTY
FRN Managing Editor
If you really knew me, you would know that I struggle almost daily with losing a child through miscarriage.
If you really knew me, you would know that in junior high, high school, and even after I graduated, I was teased relentlessly because one day some boy decided to make up a rumor and start what would become years of torment.
If you really knew me, you would know that I love God and my family with everything I have in my being and so much more.
If you really knew me, you would know that at this moment I have so much pride and admiration for the young men and women of Defiance High School that I can barely speak.
Words cannot begin to describe the experience I had Tuesday as I sat with nearly 100 students and listened as they shared their deepest fears, dreams and struggles during Challenge Day.
What I didn’t know was that not only had God called me there this day to help others, but He called me so that they might help me.
What I said at the beginning of this article is true. My husband, Bradley, and I heard the words, “I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat,” 11-weeks into a pregnancy, four years ago today to be exact. I was also the target of teasing through much of my adolescence. And I am not ashamed to proclaim from the highest rooftop, that Jesus Christ is Lord of my life. Lastly, I often wonder if I could love my family, Elijah, age 5, and Mayah, who is almost three, along with my husband any more, but I’m not about to stop trying.
But many, if not most of you in this community, did not know any of those things and had it not been for Challenge Day, you may not have ever known.
Just like if it had not been for the Challenge Day program happening in our community this week students from different cliques, backgrounds, religious beliefs, ethnicity and even those within the same family would not have known the hurt, struggles and oppression facing those they walk the halls with everyday.
As we sat in small groups in the Fellowship Hall of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 400 Wayne Avenue, we shared with one another those things which they did not know about us.
Students and even adults were surprised at not only the hard times, but the dreams of the young people in this community. Among us are future doctors, architects, mothers, fathers, marine biologists and even teachers. And there is something standing in their way – us.
“I had no idea,” community member Tim Small said. “I’ve moved ten times, done business on four different continents and I haven’t lived half of what these kids have.
“I’m just shocked.”
Teacher and coach Tom Held agreed.
“If the teachers only knew what these kids went through there would be so much compassion in the classroom,” he said.
Because we do not know each other, we judge one another. We stand at the school and we look at the students dressed in black, wearing sports uniforms, carrying home a backpack full of books and we say, “I don’t want my child being friends with that student,” “he’s so athletic,” “Wow she must be really smart.”
But inside, there is a whole different life being lived. Inside that student wearing black is hurting because as they walk the halls, people turn the other way, students whisper and rumors fly.
The athlete, who excels in the gym, is falling apart because when they go home at night one or more of their parents will not be there because of death or divorce.
The honor roll student is hiding the fact that their parents barely hit the door before they hit the bottle and so to escape, they hit the books.
If you really knew these students, would you still feel the same way? Would you still judge them?
“If you can get past stereotypes, you can change lives,” Challenge Day Co-Founder Rich Dutra-St. John told facilitators. “Today you did that.”
One of the exercises during Challenge Day called for students to step over the line if they had ever experienced a specific hardship which was named by leader Nola-Joy Boyd. Once students stepped over the line they were representing a group that struggled with oppression and often tough life circumstances.
Students were brave and honest with one another as they stepped over the line, away from the comfort of their friends and their cliques, to admit their real struggles, being abused, and made fun of because of their weight, ethnicity even disabilities.
But there was one question in particular that really got me. “Step over the line if you’ve ever been a child,” Boyd said. And children stayed behind. Young men and women stayed on the other side of the line because they have been forced to live a life where they have never had the opportunity to be a child. They have parented their parents, took responsibility for themselves, and grew old, before they ever got to grow up.
By the end of the day, students were embracing not only the challenge before them to “Be The Change” in their community, but the student beside them who until this day they really didn’t know at all.
Students were encouraged to leave this day loving one another, not judging another and hugging everyone they meet. They left with new purpose and a feeling of belonging.
Each life was celebrated from the moment they entered the room and teachers, community members and parents cheered them on, to the very end when the student they had teased accepted their apology.
Students were challenged to notice, to wake-up to what is happening around them; then to choose how they would like things to be; and finally to act or take whatever action is necessary to bring the change they want to see. Their goal, to “Be The Change.”
Boyd share with students the words of Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi, who said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” She told them that changing their school starts inside of them and that things begin to change because they are looking at people with new eyes.
If only they could have had this program when I was in high school, I can’t help to think so many things may have been different in my life. Fortunately for me, this Challenge Day was a tool in healing the hurts that have been a part of my life for more than 20 years. The greatest blessing for the students going through the program this year, they don’t have to wait that long.
What about you Defiance, what are you waiting for? If people really knew you, would they still judge you? Not the students I met this day, no those students, they are going to hug you.
See Pictures From Challenge Day 1/8/2008 (Click here)
Updated: 1/8/2008 11:12 PMStudents Tackle Tough Realities at Challenge Day
By AMY McCARTY
FRN Managing Editor
If one student can make a difference, Scott Hammersmith has done just that.
Hammersmith took his own life in the spring of 2006 when he was a sophomore, however, in life and in death he touched the life of a man that will never forget him.
Varsity baseball coach and Defiance High School teacher Tom Held still remembers the day he heard the news.
“My doorbell rang following a baseball game,” he said. “A police officer said, ‘I’ve got some bad news coach. One of your players just took his life.’
“It was only an hour after the game”
Held still lights up when he talks of the former baseball standout, who would have been a senior this year.
“He was a great kid, from a great family,” he said. “He was an all-American boy, a good student and a good athlete.
“There was no warning no one had any idea. It was like the step over the line exercise, kids think others have perfect lives and have it together, but sometimes inside they are hurting.”
In the fall of 2006, Held saw an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show that talked about Challenge Day and he knew that the program needed to come to Defiance High School.
“I couldn’t get the program out of my mind,” he said. “I thought, ‘we need this in education.’”
Held and his assistant coach Rick Weaver began to implement some of the concepts of Challenge Day they picked-up from the program’s web-site, www.challengeday.org, with the baseball team. They used team building exercises at practices and encouraged the team to try to “Be The Change” by inviting students they didn’t know very well to eat lunch with them and reaching out to students who may be different from them.
“One day I was reviewing a video of the Oprah episode in my classroom shortly before the bell,” Held said. “Next thing I knew students were watching it.
“They didn’t get to see it all, but asked to watch it in full the next day.”
From there the idea of bringing Challenge Day to Defiance steam rolled. Fellow teacher Julie Brown and parents Heather Vittorio and Mary Weisgerber jumped quickly on board and the rest, as they say, is history.
According to Held, the reason the program is making history and changing lives is because of Hammersmith.
“I believe that God has a reason for everything,” Held said. “This is because of Scotty, it really is.
“Two years ago I wouldn’t have been doing this. I am not a touchy, feely person.”
But it takes just one person to be the change in the world and in life and death, for Held, that will always be Scott Hammersmith.
“That day, at that moment, I realized I am here for more than teaching and education,” he said. “I am here to make a big difference.
“I want to do more; I need to do more, for Scotty.”
Updated: 1/8/2008 11:12 PM