On Friday, January 12th, several GWUOHS students and parents from the Washington, D.C. area convened at Summit Ropes, a large ropes course in Sterling, Va. Organized by science teacher Whitney Keaton and college counselor Lisa Bell, this event was the first regional meetup of the academic year.
The group started with a fun icebreaker to familiarize themselves with each other. Then, before launching into the course, the students received formal training to properly utilize the safety equipment. The climbers spent over one hour exploring the ropes course together. Senior Max E., one of the students who attended, described “completing rope challenges” as one of his favorite parts of the meetup.
Freshman Olivia T. agreed. “My favorite part of the meetup was to laugh with the other kids while completing the course,” she said. “The courses were much more challenging than they looked.”
After completing various obstacles in the ropes course, the group bought lunch at a nearby cafe and hung out together. Keaton thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to get to her students even better.
“Seeing my students (and many of their parents) in person is my favorite part of meetups,” she expressed. “I love being able to put so many names and faces together and there is something special about seeing someone you work with in class regularly in person and seeing their personality in action!”
Olivia had a similar experience. “When I walked in, I immediately recognized about 75% of the kids from seeing them in [online classes]. I also recognized the names from our class discussions. It was very nice seeing them in person.”
As she witnessed the vibrant group of students interact, Keaton hoped for them to stay in touch.
“Seeing new friendships form is a really cool experience. I hope that this meetup event was just the beginning to these students forming lifelong friendships.”
Keaton’s wish may come true.
“We have a group chat now,” Max shared.
In addition to forming a close-knit group, Olivia found that the meetup helped her make some more personal connections.
“I made some closer friends that I would love to keep in contact with,” she said.
