The trainers held three, half day classroom sessions covering a myriad of concepts and skill sets designed to help the students better understand resiliency and develop mental, emotional, physical and behavioral toughness to help them overcome the challenges they may face after high school life. The training ended on the third day with all the seniors taking part in friendly competitive activities at a pep rally held in the school gymnasium.
This was the first time resiliency training was taught at Kubasaki High School and the first time for the U.S. Army MRT instructors to teach to high school students.
Staff Sgt. Katherine Johnson, a senior intelligence officer with 10th SG(R), explained that the skills taught to the students were tailored to meet their specific needs, without changing too much of the content.
“The biggest challenge we had in teaching resiliency to teenagers vice Soldiers was in the way we would talk and relate. As Soldiers, it’s a lot easier for us to relate because being a Soldier is our everyday life. We have similar experiences and stories that we can share with one another, such as deployment and going to the field. We have common life experiences to use as examples,” said Johnson. “With teenagers it’s pretty different. Because MRT trainers are typically senior NCO’s, they have a good five to six years since leaving high school. For most of us the gap is even wider, so there’s a big difference in our experiences, the problems we face, how we communicate, how we relate, and how to get certain points across. We actually had to practice how we were going to instruct, talk to them and what kind of examples we were going to use.”
Kubasaki High School Principal, Greg Mowen, explained that resiliency training was implemented to help students cope with the many unique challenges that military children face.
“It’s a very stressful time for the kids, here in Japan. A vast majority of these kids are heading back to the states for schooling. Some of them have never even lived in the states, they’ve been overseas their entire lives. There is some apprehension about moving there, living there and going to school there. There’s already a sense of “I wonder what.” My hope was that we would be able to equip our students with skills that they could apply to help them reduce their stress levels, focus on resolving problems that may come up in their daily lives and live more happy and healthy lives as a result,” said Mowen.
Mowen expressed his desire to hold resiliency training again next year for juniors and eventually have this training for all of the students at the school.
Located on Torii Station, in Yomitan, Okinawa, 10th Support Group (Regional) is the senior U.S. Army Command providing administrative control, and base/contingency support for all Army organizations and deployed/employed joint forces on the island and in the region.