There are five parts to Rachel’s Challenge, and Shaker High School student who follow them will help Rachel Scott’s legacy live on.
Rachel Scott was one of the victims of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, in Columbine, Colo., in which two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 students and a teacher while wounding 23 others before committing suicide. Scott was 17 years old when she was killed, and she was the first to be shot in the incident.
Shortly after her death, Scott’s father read through her diaries, learning about the qualities Rachel worked on possessing, as well as inspiring others to have. Shortly after her death, her parents began a national movement to teach high school students across the country about their daughter and inspire them to be the model citizens Rachel wanted her peers to be.
According to Mark Kaercher, a math teacher at Shaker High School, the school’s character education committee came up with the idea to bring Rachel’s Challenge to Shaker this year.
The day of the program, which is March 12, there’s going to be three different sessions. We needed to do it in three sessions to be able to accommodate all of the students, Kaercher said.
After the program, several students chosen to be Friends of Rachel, or student leaders, and will meet with the presenter for an extended amount of time after school to train to carry on the movement throughout the school year.
Those students who will become Friends of Rachel will be nominated by their teachers and peers this week.
Lisa Rauche, a health teacher at the high school who is also on the character education committee, explained that the day will start off with all students attending a presentation.
Typically, Rauche said, the representative from Rachel’s Challenge that comes to speak is one of Scott’s family members, although the representative coming to Shaker this year is not a direct family member.
According to Principal Richard Murphy, the cost of bringing the program to Shaker is about $5,000 and will be coming out of the school’s pupil services budget. The costs, he said, cover pre-information that was provided to the students about the presentation they will be seeing.
`It then covers a very full day,` Murphy said.
The presenter’s travel costs are also covered in the cost of bringing the program to the school.
Kaercher said that although the Columbine incident occurred 10 years ago when many Shaker were only about eight years old, he is hoping that, through the presentation, they will learn what an emotional situation it was.
After the presenter shows the students a video explaining the Columbine massacre and who Scott was, Rauche said, they will learn about the five steps to Rachel’s Challenge.
`The first one is to eliminate prejudice,` said Rauche. `And it doesn’t just go out there and say, ‘Don’t be a prejudiced person,` or ‘Don’t be a biased person,’ but it asks you to look at the prejudice in yourself.`
The next step asks students to dare to dream. Rauche said this is done by setting goals and writing things down in a journal. Next, students must choose their influences, which requires them to be aware of their individual environments and that `our input determines our output,` Rauche said.
The next step reminds students to use kind words and encourages them to be mindful and thoughtful of the words that they use on a daily basis, as well as completing small acts of kindness.
Finally, the challenge asks each student to start their own chain reaction. During the presentation, students are asked to close their eyes and think about people who mean something to them.
`Go and tell people how much they mean to you so that you will start your own chain reaction,` Rauche said.
Rauche labeled the steps in the program, `very simple concepts and very doable,` and said that while the students will be working on these steps all day March 12, the committee is hoping that Rachel’s Challenge will inspire actions and behavior for the remainder of this year and in years to come.
The students who are nominated by their teachers this week and who are chosen as student facilitators, or Friends of Rachel, will work with the entire student body year-round to ensure Rachel’s Challenge is carried out for more than just one day.“