March marked our very WHACC team building endeavor. We kicked it off with a bang taking on a challenge called The Triangle of Life.
I am so impressed with each groups ability and desire to reflect on these events, even though many of them paralleled the club meeting with a socialism lesson in history class, and now they all think I'm a communist. These humans crack me up!
For the team building activity scholars were separated onto 3 "islands" and needed to acquire three essential resources: food (the nutritious Sower Patch Kids), water (in bottle form), and fire (or battery operated candles for safety). These resources were grouped by category in 3 boxes, "floating" between the islands.
Each group had resources (aka what I could find in the garage) to help acquire and distribute the resources to everyone as they could not leave their respective islands. Two islands had buckets and all three groups a rope, though all ropes were of different weights and lengths.
After 30 minutes of hard work, each group had their items. They successfully completed the challenge - no easy feat! However, the most interesting thing to come out of the activity was the debrief.
After reflecting on the actions of each group they realized that the subconsciously formed a hierarchy between the haves and have-nots. The group with the longest and heaviest rope (easiest to toss) became the leaders, dictating how things happened. The group with the shortest and lightest rope, that through sheer grit were able to collect one of the floating boxes on their own, could not have their ideas heard by the group with the best rope. Applying this to life was an easy concept for everyone to grasp. There are several ways in which individuals have advantage, but it is important to be aware of those advantages and make sure they do not blind you to others' realities, for all are valuable members of a community.
I could not have imagined this activity working out better, all because I wanted to save club money and just used whatever scraps of rope I could find in the garage. These students amaze me every day!