Slater P.E. teacher Alice Herauf has built the mother of all obstacle courses for students to navigate
By Randy Parks
Burns Times-Herald
While many grade school children may dread the thought of returning to the classroom after Christmas break, such is not the case at Slater Elementary School.
That’s because Slater students know that when they return, physical education (P.E.) instructor Alice Herauf will have the Temple of Doom waiting for them in the gymnasium.
The Temple of Doom is an elaborate obstacle course made up of mats, pads, tunnels and other P.E. equipment that takes up the entire gym floor. Herauf, now in her 23rd year of teaching, said she has been building the course for the kids for at least 15 years.
Herauf said she got the idea after seeing a flyer about a small course that someone had built elsewhere. “There were about four little things for the kids to do,” she said. “So I decided to make a bigger obstacle course. Then the ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ movie came out, so that’s what I started calling it.”
Her first year of building the course, Herauf was teaching at Hines Elementary School, and the layout went upstairs into what is now the band room, across the stage and covered the gym floor.
After moving to Slater, Herauf has kept up the tradition and said she tries to add at least two new components to the course every year. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger,” she laughed.
This year’s temple
This year’s course begins with students using stepping stones to cross “hot lava.” Once across, they enter a maze that stretches the length of the gym. Upon departing the maze, students then walk the plank across “shark-infested waters,” high-step it through “TNT dynamite sticks,” shimmy under the “electric fence,” bounce across the backs of “sea turtles,” step across a set of wooden boxes, crawl through the land of “sleeping cobras,” slip through the “python pit,” dodge the swinging ball, work their way through the “sleeping snakes” and the “bone zone,” sidestep “land mines,” cross the “quicksand pit,” leap the double ramps, wriggle through a tunnel, navigate a mini-maze, hop through a field of tires, and exit through another tunnel and a set of “bombshells.”
If a student falls from an obstacle, knocks a “bone” loose or touches a “snake,” they are required to start over in that particular part of the course.
Once they have completed the course, students can go through it again as many times as their P.E. period allows.
“They start out fast, but as time goes by, they slow down quite a bit,” Herauf said.
Rewards and rules
Herauf explained that just before the school lets out for the winter break, her P.E. classes have their dance unit. Students are required to learn a number of dances and perform them in class.
“If they learn every dance, they earn tickets to enter the Temple of Doom,” she said. “They each earn tickets individually and as a class. It really works to have the Temple of Doom as an incentive.”
Before anyone enters the course, Herauf makes sure they know the rules: no running in the mazes, no pushing on the mats and if they knock an obstacle over, it must be reset. The children are also cautioned to not move any walls within the mazes.
The participants
While the older students at Slater are veterans of moving through the course, they are still reminded of the rules and then set free to race through the obstacles.
When the kindergarten children enter the gym, they look as if they just entered an alien world. Herauf gets them to stand in a line on the stage, and then narrates the route as an older student shows them how to go through.
As the first-timers begin, Herauf is there to encourage and direct them. The first trip is cautious, but by the time they’re ready to enter the Temple of Doom for the second time, confidence is high.
To keep things interesting, Herauf will occasionally move walls inside the mazes to keep the kids guessing.
To illustrate the fun, Herauf said, “The other day I heard this little voice calling, ‘Miss Herauf … Miss Herauf.’ I looked around and couldn’t see anyone and I wondered who was calling me. Then I heard the voice again, ‘Miss Herauf, I’m lost in the maze.’ We rescued her.”
It took Herauf and 12 helpers almost two hours to get this year’s course set up and ready to go, but the reaction of the students makes it all worthwhile. “The kids all look forward to it, and when I hear them say, ‘This is fun,’ it means a lot,” Herauf said. “I like doing it, and it’s a reward for the kids.”
Herauf added there is just one drawback to the whole idea. “At the end of the period, I can’t get them out. They don’t want to leave and go back to class,” she laughed.
While this year’s students conquered the hot lava, snakes, sea turtles and the bone zone, who knows what next year’s Temple of Doom will bring?
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