Wellness Day. Walking through the school freely without a hall pass. Each classroom is filled with different kinds of students of all different grades. Students and staff coming together to enjoy the same interests. No learning–no working–just fun.
Wellness Day brought students and staff together. They didn’t have to worry about being a student or being a teacher for a day. They focused more on having fun and bonding together over the things that they may not have known they had in common. Things like nature, movies, and roller skating! This raises the question whether Wellness Day was that much of a success for it to happen more than once a year.
“School culture is impacted by a lot, but one of the main factors that influence it is about developing relationships with students where they view teachers as people who are there for them – the individual person, not just the student on their roster.” Says Mr. Matthew Jackling, the wellness coordinator of Triton.
Triton Voice interviews the person who Brought Wellness Day to Triton, Mr. Jackling, who gives his input on how Wellness Day came to be, and how the day went. Triton voice also gets to interview a ninth grade student who participated in Wellness Day, Aalyza Kenney, and she tells us her experience on Wellness Day. Overall, we get to see the expectations vs reality of Wellness Day, and if the goal for Triton’s students and staff to bond more was achieved.
The goal for Wellness Day was to give students and staff an opportunity to build a bond with each other beyond just the classroom, so that they can have better communication in the future. Mr Jackling expresses, “I do think that based on what I observed, people allowed themselves to be more open to different things, which is one of the ultimate goals of the day. When we let our guard down, we allow ourselves to experience things differently, and that can be rewarding. So in that regard, I really want to thank everyone who participated. That alone is a big ask, and it was great to see people making the effort.” For the students who participated in Wellness Day, it took a lot of courage to just jump in and choose a workshop–even if a staff member who they weren’t familiar with was hosting it. And for the 202 students who didn’t participate, it was understandable to just want to take off, reason being that they didn’t know what they were in for.
Mr. Jackling had mixed feelings about how the day was going to go. He says he felt a mix of hope and concern. “Hopeful because I think new/different ideas are great opportunities for growth for all that are involved, which whether they succeed or if they fail, teach us a ton. I was concerned for all of those whose stress levels were negatively impacted due to the change up, in addition to how all of the “unknowns” of the day would impact everyone’s personal experience. I am fully aware that these programs present various challenges for both students and staff, but I was optimistic that the payoff would be worth it.” Wellness Day was definitely something different for Triton. Some may not have even gone. It was a fact that many students did feel a certain way about Wellness Day, a lot of confusion, but after students and staff got the hang of it, it seemed like they enjoyed themselves.
Statistics back up what Mr Jackling said about students being impacted by the big change. A survey was given out to students to see how they felt about Wellness Day. When asked about students’ stress levels during the workshops, the majority voted, 60.9% of students replied with 1 out of 5. When asked about Wellness Day giving an opportunity to decrease school-related stress, the majority voted, 90.8%, students replied with yes. When asked whether Wellness Day or similar activities should continue to take place at Triton, the majority voted, 98.9%, students replied with yes. Taking a look at these students and staff surveys, shows that the majority of the students who partook in Wellness Day, actually enjoyed themselves.
To get a better understanding from a student’s perspective on Wellness Day, we turned to Ms. Aalyza Kenney. She chose to participate in Mr. Gette’s Bee workshop. She got to do activities like make lip balm out of beeswax, homemade honey popcorn treats, and planted flowers for the bee habitat behind the school. “I got a lot of benefits out of the day. I just got into high school, so it was nice to meet more students, and I learned a lot about nature.” When asked how Aalyza felt about the day, and how it benefited her, she said “The best part of my Wellness Day was spending time with great teachers and students. I loved how we did activities and worked all together. I think Wellness Day is a good benefit for triton because you make new friends and also meet new teachers!” Aalyza noticed it wasn’t just her enjoying herself. Many other students had other activities surrounding Mr. Gette’s classroom, one being the skating activity. Aalyza says, “It was funny watching Mr. Kelley on roller skates. At one point I even joined in and started skateboarding. Mr. Kelley has been my best friend ever since!” All jokes aside, it was certain that she made new friends that day and definitely won’t forget her first Wellness Day.
I think we found the answer to our question, Wellness Day should happen more often. Regardless of the mixed feelings at the beginning or how many people came, it was certain that the people who did participate in Wellness Day enjoyed it.
