Rachel’s Challenge inspires students to start a reaction
By Divya Kumar
News Editor
A Photo of Rachel from the Rachel's Challenge seminar. Photo by Tyler Morris.
On Oct. 1, a program called Rachel’s Challenge was presented to the students of Coppell High School in the large gym. What seemingly began as just an average assembly for the school developed into a inspirational experience for the student body, followed by a standing ovation from juniors and seniors.
“Honestly, I was just planning on doing my homework the entire time,” junior student Sarah Rousey said. “Needless to say, it wasn’t like any of the normal inspirational speeches we used to get in teen leadership—it was a real life story with real life effects that really caused me to think about the way I lead life.”
The program began with speaker Cody Hodges introducing the history behind it. Rachel Scott, 17, was the first student shot at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her funeral, televised live on CNN, got the most views out of anything displayed on the broadcast. It wasn’t this that made the name Rachel Scott well known, however—it was the finding of her diary, weeks after she had died, by her father that prompted the beginnings of the program Rachel’s Challenge.
Students watch and listen as they are issued a challenge from the diary of Rachel. Photo by Tyler Morris.
Rachel’s Challenge involves five basic tasks which speakers urge students at high schools to follow out: have goals and write them down, remove prejudice, look upon positive influences, enact small acts of kindness in everyday life and the fifth, and possibly most important, start a chain reaction of kindness. The program spoke of the importance of kindness and how strongly it can affect the lives of others.
“I’ve always heard about how I should be nice to other people,” sophomore student Monica Blazek said. “It always seemed like an overused phrase, though, and I never thought that being nice to someone one time would actually have the power to change them. After the presentation, I know that it does.”
Rachel’s Challenge, presented to freshmen and sophomores during first period, and to juniors and seniors during second, truly appeared to have an impact on the student body as a whole.
“I had been warned about the clichéd ideas that we usually got during assemblies,” freshman student Mira Shah said. “But Rachel’s Challenge really changed my perspective on a lot of things. I do think that I’m going to accept the challenge because, especially as a freshman, we’re all new and I’m sure that we could all use a bit of kindness, even from upperclassmen.”
To all those who accepted the challenge, like Shah, a banner was available to sign at lunch. The banner will be hung in the commons in order to constantly remind students of their oath to help promote small acts of kindness.
The five challenges issued by Rachel's Challenge. Photo by Tyler Morris.
Also, students who have been moved by the program can talk to associate principal Leanne Dorhout in order to be part of the Friends of Rachel club in which students can work together to see how to further promote Rachel’s Challenge and enact its actions throughout the school and community.
To those who have truly been touched by the presentation or would like more information on Rachel’s Challenge, another viewing will be available Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Hall for students and parents to attend. To learn more about Rachel’s Challenge, visit www.rachelschallenge.org.
I thought it was a bit ridiculous, especially the comparisons to Anne Frank.
I somewhat agree with Hannah. I think it would’ve been better if they had simply stuck to her story, but they brought in the bits about her predicting her death and the guy who dreamed about her and the picture she drew. I don’t buy into supernatural stuff like that. But overall it was a moving presentation, especially the early part with the footage and images from Columbine.
The presentation was very well done, but I think it tried a bit too hard to get the students’ attention. Nearly the entire second half was devoted to stories of premonition and eerie drawings that really had nothing whatsoever to do with the message they were trying to get across. When walking out of the assembly and for the rest of the day these things were talked about more than anything else, and I think they may have even taken away from the presentation a bit. Despite this, I do believe that many students did take away a positive message from the program and at least were made to think about themselves from an outside perspective. CHS did a good thing by bringing this program to us, and I for one am grateful that they were able to finally make an impact.
I agree, the Anne Frank thing was a stretch.
Wait I hit tab and it enter my comment?
*entered rather
The Anne Frank think was a stretch, the connections were weak, and it felt like he tried to make it seem like Anne Frank was an idol of hers, but that didn’t appear to be true.
And another thing, he said the one boy was killed for the color of his skin. And the two shooters were probably racist, but it is a HUGE stretch to say that that was the reason he was killed, considering they were shooting people at random.
He also said that those two kids were killed were the brothers “best friends” which seemed like a plain lie, but he may have mis spoked.
But we are kind of being nit-picky
The message was good, be kind to others because you don’t know if they, or you will be around tomorrow. The overall presentation was good, and it did make you kind of think “this could have been me or my friends.”
Now I realize this is America, but don’t you think we are lucky to say Columbine is the worst terrorist attack at a school? It was a terrible tragedy, but this was the worst one ever (or so far if you are a pessimist).
Regardless I am happy about the message this organization puts out and the overall effect of the presentation.