The River: Life Lessons from ROVA Activities for the Class of 2020

It’s the final day of their junior academic year, but learning doesn’t stop at LCCTC.

With ideas borrowed from the ROVA Leadership Conference, juniors from English class participated in “The River.”

“In front of you is a raging river,” their teacher warned, “filled with sharp-toothed piranhas and toe-nibbling alligators — quite dangerous. You are challenged to cross this raging river using only this box of wooden ‘boulders’. If you step off of your boulder, you need to return to the start and begin again. The key to success is TEAMWORK.”

Soon — the class huddled together to brainstorm strategies to successfully complete their goal.

They tried. They failed. They reorganized and tried again. They used critical thinking. They asked for help. They offered solutions.

Sometimes, the “boulders” were kicked aside and the kids needed to figure out what they needed to do to regroup. Sometimes, someone fell off the path and needed to return to start. Sometimes, someone lost their balance and reached out for help — and help was always given. It’s that way in life, too.

And in the end, they all succeeded — and even on the final day of class, they learned.