Using elements of theater, creativity and improvisation, a 16-year-old Bordentown girl scout is working her to way toward her Gold Award by influencing local students.
As part of her Gold Award project, titled, “Act Outside the Box,” local girl scout and Bordentown Regional High School Student, Alison Wall, is working to strengthen communication and social skills among elementary school students, while also introducing them to theatre at a young age.
In doing so, Alison is creating improv boxes for elementary school classrooms filled with toys, dress-up items and improvisational cards depicting social situations that she said an elementary school student may find themselves in as well as providing them with fun fictional scenarios in which they can use their imaginations.
As a scout for 12 years and member of Bordentown Girl Scout Troop 23921, Alison has already earned her Bronze and Silver Award. To attain her Gold Award, the highest honor for a girl scout, Alison needed to come up with a project that would have a sustaining impact on her community.
The township resident explained that for her project, she looked to influence younger school students in the area to become more reliant on themselves and each other rather than technology.
“I was thinking about the younger generation and seeing how obsessed they are with technology, but that can sometimes get in the way of face-to-face communication and talking to each other,” Alison said. “I wanted to make sure that these kids had the ability to communicate with each other while also having introduced them to theater.”
With the idea in mind, Alison began planning her project in the summer of 2018, worked to obtain donations for her project and began writing improvisational cards for students that they could act out or engage in.
Along with help from multiple individuals, which included her project advisor, Jodie Glenn, girl scout advisor, Jennifer Wheeler, and theater director, Stacie Morano, the Bordentown girl scout said her mother’s profession in the school system also helped derive ideas for the project as well.
“My mother just so happens to be a school counselor, so I talked to her about what sort of issues she sees in her kids and what she wishes they were better at handling,” Alison said. “So, I wrote questions for scenarios based on what she would like to see improved and through my own experiences of what happened to me and my friends in elementary school, and what the struggles are that you can go through.”
As Alison worked to obtain material donations from the community such as toys, dress-up items and costumes, she also created improvisational cards to spark ideas in school students such as prompts like where they would go on vacation and what they would do or how they would spend an adventure given a day off from school.
“Things to get their imagination going,” she said.
Alison said she began routinely visiting and working with students from kindergarten through third grade at Peter Muschal Elementary School in Bordentown last spring, and has already seen a noticeable impact in their engagement with the program.
“All the kids seem to really enjoy it,” she said. “I can tell they are really happy when I show up, which is a good thing to see.”
The Bordentown girl scout not only recognized students’ interest in the program, but explained the significance of it too.
“I think it’s so important because we all need a human connection in life,” she said. “If we do not have the skills to make that connection, it makes life difficult.”
As a theater enthusiast and performer for approximately six years now, Alison, who’s also a member of the Bordentown Regional High School theater group, said that multiple qualities in stage performance can resonate to real life situations.
“I found out from a pretty young age that theater can really help you express emotions that you didn’t know you had even if it can be in the most unexpected way possible,” she said. “Just being able to get on stage and pretend to be someone else has been something that has really changed my life. You can take yourself out of it, but also use your own personal experiences to influence the way you perform.”
Another quality the girl scout said she took away from the project experience is a sense of leadership. Alison explained that working with students as a team rather than leading herself was something she was proud of.
“Being able to put myself in these kids’ shoes and understand where they were coming from when they gave a certain answer or seeing how they improved,” she said.
While Alison continues to implement those characteristics of theater and work with the students at Peter Muschal Elementary School, she said she’s noticed positive responses and participation from them as well as what it could potentially mean for future students.
As Alison plans to complete her project in February, she said she is hopeful that future, unsuspecting students will see some of the props from her project to kick start ideas of their own.
“I’m really excited to see it come together and see the finished project,” she said. “I like to think about the idea that maybe someday, some kid will find these boxes of toys on a shelf in an aftercare program and start a game with their friends, and find fun in something they didn’t know they would.”