ORAKA Rocks Four Rivers Culture. Next: The Whole World?

Only from a global pandemic could emerge a sweet potato carved into the shape of a miniature sofa. This world-wide phenomenon of uncovering bizarre personal hobbies from the murk of social isolation seemed to Div 3 English teacher Leah Plath like something worth harnessing for the 2020-2021 school year. It would be a challenge, a game. There would be lists, there would be rewards, there would be anachronistically-photoshopped oil paintings. And she would call it what it is: Otters doing Random Acts of Kindness and Art. She would call it: ORAKA.

The Origins of ORAKA

Though ultimately the brainchild of Mrs. Plath, ORAKA was originally inspired by a summer-long scavenger hunt called GISH, or the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt, in 2013. Upon returning to school that fall, Mrs. Plath sought to supplement the already-absurd Four Rivers curriculum with the aspects of GISH that helped her de-stress and channel any unruly energy into acts of spontaneous foolery and joy. Thus, JORAKA was born into the world, an ORAKA specifically for Junior Crews, as signified by the “J.” The idea was to complete as many random acts of kindness and adventure as possible before the end of the year.

“We wanted to do something that gave us a year-long crew bonding opportunity and also had a spirit of competition about it,” Mrs. Plath described in an interview. Eventually, due to faculty turnover and loss of momentum, JORAKA retired with the passage of time.

Like many of our own weird, dormant hobbies that reawoke during quarantine, the idea for JORAKA, now ORAKA, was resuscitated to colorize the bleakness of distance learning. Mrs. Plath saw ORAKA as “something crews could do "together' while not together.” Through a short, crafty introduction video portrayed with paper-cut-out characters, Mrs. Plath challenged crews across all grades to complete as many tasks of oddity and compassion as possible from a pre-written list.

Mrs. Plath hopes that ORAKA will serve as sanctuary for the entire spectrum of quarantine-crazed impulses “with the opportunity for everyone to participate at whatever level feels comfortable for them, and with different styles of challenges, I hope there's a little something for everyone.”

ORAKA Meets 2020

I asked Leah Plath if she has noticed a culture shift at Four Rivers. As a senior who remembers JORAKA from my earliest years here, the reintroduction of ORAKA took me back to a time where Four Rivers was concerned mainly with Baby Grit and the student body wore overall less shoes. How would ORAKA bode in an environment completely different from how it was 6 years ago?

Mrs. Plath sees it as a maturity shift. In the past few years, she says, Four Rivers has become less of a pre-teen and more of a young adult. The school, founded in 2003, is finally the same age as its oldest students. Just like many of us, it has taken more to the influence of social media, and is holding itself accountable for practicing antiracism. In the sense that change yields progress, Mrs. Plath thinks these cultural transitions are good.

With these major adaptations comes the harsh reality that the future we are stepping into, both at school and in the larger world, is becoming an increasingly difficult one to fit ourselves into. The people alive on this planet right now are doing a lot of work to deal with a political climate as well as an actual climate that no humans have ever faced before. Mrs. Plath thinks that this is perhaps a sign of us “buying into ‘grind culture,’ where everything's about being busy and working hard and embracing the hustle until there's nothing left of us to give each other.”

“I don't think people are kind enough to each other,” she says. Perhaps the world doesn’t allow for it anymore.

Now, ORAKA isn’t supposed to fix any of that, says Mrs. Plath. “But there's something beautiful about telling yourself and each other, ‘Today, it is important that we film a soap opera using our socks.’ Or, ‘Today, I am going to make my best friend a merit badge.’”

ORAKA challenges us to do something even the world cannot challenge us to do, which is to have fun together. It’s about prioritizing “both kindness and weirdness” above our constant concern over prioritizing. Every student should take part in ORAKA, Mrs. Plath says, to embrace the kind and the weird. “ORAKA asks us to create things for the sheer joy of creation, to do acts of kindness. Somewhere in there, I hope it also brings us together,

crew by crew, to celebrate those simple acts and each other.”

Visit ORAKA's website to see what everyone's up to.