Creek! As the door on the bus closed, I thought about what the day might look like. As the bus pulled away from school, I told the person next to me “I can’t wait for the ropes course” he responded “Me too!‘ As we drove, I thought about what I expected to see at the course. I had no idea that I was in for a day of rope bridges, wire walks, and planks between platforms. I started to think about what I might learn when the bus pulled up to the challenge course.

As soon as we arrived at Bedford Challenge Course it was clear that there were many things to do. Firstly, there was the Rope Bridge. This was definitely my favorite part of the day. At the rope bridge we broke up into two teams that each went to separate sides of the bridge. Both sides had to work together to get everybody to the side they didn’t start on. If you touched someone on the other side or the ground, you had to start over and your team gained a touch. If your team got three touches, everybody on the bridge had to go back to the beginning. I enjoyed this because it was fun to help organize a plan and then to get everybody on board and execute it. However, it was very chaotic. The whole time I was thinking, “Why doesn’t everyone just quiet down and listen to each other’s ideas?” We got some people across but not everyone. One of the other things we did was the Mohawk Walk. I did not like this course at all. The setup was that our group was presented with a bunch of trees with metal wires connecting them. The challenge was that you had to get everybody from one side to the other without touching the ground. Each tree was a checkpoint and if you fell, you had to go back to the last tree. I started to wonder, “Why is no one just sliding along the wire?” Then I tried it. It hurt. A lot. The reason I didn’t enjoy this challenge was primarily because an unbelievable number of people fell a couple of feet and got hurt on that course. Finally, we did the lava island challenge. I didn’t enjoy this challenge either. You had three platforms and a wooden plank. You had to get everyone to the third platform and neither you or the plank could touch the ground. The reason I didn’t like it was because I didn’t get to do anything. I just held down the plank for everyone else. The whole time everyone was yelling “I’m next!, I’m next!” And because it was so chaotic, some people didn’t get to go. Even though I didn’t like some parts; Overall, the field trip was fine and I wouldn’t hate to do it again.

After the trip, I not only reflected on what I did, but also on what I learned. Firstly, I thought about myself. I figured out that I don’t realize at first glance how hard something is and even after looking at people doing it, I don’t comprehend the difficulty level until I experience the challenge. The way I learned was on the Indiana Jones challenge. As everyone else started to go, I thought “How come everyone is having so much trouble, you just have to walk on the beams?” Then, when I climbed onto the first beam, I had tons of difficulty on it and realized it was way harder than it looked. I also learned about my classmates. I learned that Eymen is a strong leader. On the rope bridge challenge, he took charge and navigated people out of a big traffic jam on the bridge. Without that, so many people would not have made it anywhere and we would have all had to restart. Finally, I learned that there will always be someone trying to get in the way of the plan. I learned that when on the rope bridge, people were getting in the way and making it impossible. Overall, I learned a lot; both on the trip and reflecting on it.

In conclusion, I did a lot, thought a lot, and learned a lot. I realized that teamwork is hard and it’s hard to make a good plan and execute it well. You can’t always follow a plan and sometimes you just have to go with the flow and make it work. How would you solve these challenges and get everyone across?