Listen to Your Leader

I am teaching summer school for the next 6 weeks. As I have been introduced to my 25 kids, I have divided them into teams for the duration have introduce daily challenges for them to complete as a team. This is a struggle for most of my students. They are so much in the mindset that they have to take care of themselves if they are survived. Most children, in fact, are selfish in nature. Working together and putting others first is a learned trait. As a teacher, I teach and so it is time to teach how to work together. Before the day unfolded, I had no idea of the outcome of this particular challenge.

Challenge: There is a long piece of tape on one side of the room and another piece of tape about 5 yards away. This is the "river". To get acrossed the river, the team must walk on "stones" or pieces of construction paper. They have 8 pieces of constuction paper to use as they wish. The rules, someone has to be touching the construction paper at all times! Sounds easy enough?

The kids were excited to get started and they all fully believed that their team would be the first team to get the challenge. It turned out, it wasn't as easy as they first thought. We did the challenge for about two and half hours before one team finally accomplished the task! It was interesting to watch the team that got acrossed. They got it. They had nailed down key compnents to what I think makes a team work.

1. They understood the power of POSITIVE communication to help their team. I heard several comments after the they failed multiple times such as "That's ok, we'll get it the next time." or "Don't worry about it, it wasn't all your fault."

2. They had a leader and the team LISTENED TO THEIR LEADER. At the begining of the summer, each team had to decide on a leader. Honestly, this team had picked a good one. As he was completing the challenge he made sure everyone was behind him and everyone was on task. He never blamed people and none of his team argued with him being to bossy. (Unlike a lot of the other teams) His team followed his lead.

3. The leader knew the talents of his teamates and THEY FOLLOWED THEIR ROLE. This team had each individual doing a particular task that they were good at. There was a girl in the back picking up the pieces of paper. There was another girl who was a good encourager following and helping a special needs child. The leader was in front putting the papers down and looking back on his team. It worked for them.

I know as adults, we have completely mastered these techniques of working together and we don't need reminding. :) It's amazing what kids can teach.