On Nov. 5, Sidwell Friends Upper School held its annual Life Skills Workshops, replacing the regular academic schedule with a series of student-selected sessions. Through a Google Form, students chose from a wide range of workshops, including “How to Parallel Park a Golf Cart,” “How Not to Be a Cornball,” and “How to Make Guacamole.”
The event is intended to provide practical instruction and exposure to new skills outside the standard curriculum. This year’s workshops drew strong participation across grade levels, with students reporting that the sessions were informative, engaging, and effective in introducing skills they had not previously practiced.
She mentioned that in ‘How Not to be a Cornball,” she learned how “to be authentic, and do things because [she] enjoys them, not because they are what everyone else is doing.” Sophomore Victoria Wang co-hosted the session.
Despite preparing beforehand for the workshop, Wang felt “nervous when people came into the workshop.” She was worried that the workshop’s description would deter people from joining. However, Wang was pleased with the turnout of her session.
She described her first session had “a lot of hesitancy amongst the crowd, resulting in not a lot of interaction.” Wang said that after incorporating references to popular games and culture, the participation increased and the session became more enjoyable.
In her second workshop, Wang felt more confident in leading. She said that students were more distracted than the first group, but she recycled questions and topics from the prior session to encourage others to speak. Her attempts were successful and resulted in a robust discussion.
In Kountoupes’s second workshop, her instructor taught her how to use different types of knives and how to dice and slice cucumbers, and they ended the workshop by making a cucumber salad. Additionally, sophomore Maya Ahmad attended the workshop and thoroughly enjoyed the “Asian style cucumber salad.”
In Ahmad’s first session, “How to tell fortunes with Tarot Cards,” participants learned how to read others’ lives through a set of 10 cards. She thought that the workshop was “very interesting and fun.”
Senior Luca Kountoupes also participated in the workshop and attended “How to play Dungeons and Dragons.” She said that both workshops were great experiences because “you got to just have fun.”
“If you hadn’t known where to start with something like [tarot cards or dungeons and dragons] it was an educational time as well as fun,” Kountoupes said.
Senior Lara Asch attended “How to grow a sourdough starter,” which she thought was “super fun.” In the workshop, she learned about proportioning “the proper ratios and the process to keep a starter alive.”
The workshop participants received a recipe for sourdough bread. Although Asch has not tried the recipe yet, she is “ super excited to.”.
Finally, sophomore Ajuni Sidhu attended “How to make relaxing patterns.” Sidhu said she felt “very relaxed” afterwards and was excited about receiving the “fun free notebooks” for attending the workshop, where she can continue making relaxing patterns at home.
