Rock tossing releases struggles for Naperville students
The calm of the glassy pond in front of Crone Middle School in Naperville was briefly shattered Thursday morning as sixth-graders filled its waters with their struggles.
The symbolic release of stresses - in the form of words scrawled on rocks - took on powerful meaning for students in Allison Harvey's English/language arts class as they connected with a character in a book the class is about to finish.
In "Touching Spirit Bear" by Ben Mikaelsen, the main character is working through problems with anger when he decides to carry a rock and throw it every morning to release his pent-up frustration.
"We could write our struggles on the rocks and then release them just like Cole did in the story," Harvey said.
Students brought a rock of their choice to class last week and took some time to reflect on the challenges they face before scrawling those on the stones.
Some wrote about struggles with school, maybe a least favorite subject or the difficulty of making new friends. Others chose more personal struggles, like worries about a grandmother's upcoming hip surgery or difficulties after a parental divorce.
"One of mine is that my brother is going off to college next year and I'm really going to miss him," student Lily Blanchard told her classmates.
Most rocks, whether they were a landscaping brick, a fist-sized gray stone or something more colorful, were etched with several struggles.
Student Kennedy Williams wrote that she struggles with feeling accepted because she's in special help classes that sometimes pull her away from the rest of her peers. Seeing the splash of her rock and symbolically casting aside that struggle brought quite an uplifting feeling.
"It kind of felt magical for me," Kennedy said. "Now I just feel powerful."
And student Jason Appel might take the exercise even further. After releasing a rock in recognition of his struggle with dyslexia, Jason said he wants to speak with administrators at Crone in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 about creating a similar struggle rock for all kids with the condition to sign in solidarity.
The exercise helped the students process the difficulties in their lives, said Sarah Palmer, a teaching assistant in Harvey's class who came up with the idea. At a new school for sixth grade, routines are different, as are expectations.
"Transitioning from elementary to middle school has been kind of rough and unexpected for some of these students," Palmer said.
The 31 students in Harvey's morning class lined up at the shore of the pond and took turns launching their struggle rocks into the water.
Some wound up and threw the stones as far into the pond as they could. One made his toss with a grimace of anger, while many sported smiles. Ryann Parrish, who wrote her struggles on flat, colorful rocks, skipped one of them across the surface.
"It makes you feel lifted," Ryann said after all of her classmates' worries had sunken away. "Kind of letting everything go."