One thing that makes Padua Academy special is the sisterhood. Every year each class at Padua has a retreat to help build relationships and get to know each other better. On Friday, February 8, the sophomores had their retreat at Grace Church only 3 blocks down the street. Usually student’s would walk to the church but this year the retreat fell on a rainy day. Thankfully Mrs. Vavala, the event coordinator, arranged a bus to take students from the school to the church. Students arrived at the church by homerooms. The morning started off a little chaotic with the bus arrangements but once all the students arrived at the church everyone settled in. Students were assigned to different groups with two group leaders. The theme for the sophomore retreat was choices we make as teenage girls.
The first topic that was discussed in the small groups was prized possessions. One of the group leaders each brought in something that was very important to them to help explain why you have a prized possession and what it is. Everyone in the group had to go around and say what their prized possession is and why it is so important to them. Shortly after, one representative from each group had to go up in front of the class and say what the most common prized possession in their group was. The next topic to talk about was drinking under age. Group leaders were given 5 questions about teen drinking that they were to discuss with their group. Questions were asked that included what faith has to do with drinking. Every group was assigned to make a chart which listed the positives and negatives about teen drinking. I know what you’re thinking, positives about teen drinking? Positives, as in if you don’t drink, will earn respect from your peers and parents. After each group came up with a list of positives and negatives about teen drinking, there were two girls from each group that stood up and presented their chart.
After that activity, Mrs. Vavala arranged a fun game called Ships and Sailors. A game sort of like Simon Says that has to do with making choices. After the game Mrs. Vavala explained that even when we don’t realize it, we have to make choices about most things in our life. The last topic of the day was boys! Most girls at this age are realizing more about boys and how they think about things. Mrs. Vavala asked the students to quietly fill out a paper with two columns and a question in the middle. One column was their point of view as girls, and the other was to answer the question from a boy’s point of view. Questions such as “What do you look for in a relationship?”, “What would be a perfect date?”, etc. “My favorite part of the retreat was filling out the papers from the girls point of view and then in a boy’s point of view because when we went over them we figured out that all of us pretty much had the same idea of boys.”, says sophomore Anna Przywara. After students filled out those papers, they had to discuss them in their groups and group leaders wrote down the most common responses on their own paper. The class went over all of their answers and found that most groups had the same idea of what boys want in a girl and what girls want in a boy.
The last activity at the sophomore retreat was to have each group come up with a part of a prayer that was to be read at the end of the day. At around 2:20 pm, they closed in prayer and headed back to Padua on foot.