Mrs. Stagg and I have very high expectations for our classes this year and will spend the next 9 months challenging these kids to do what they may think is impossible.... So they HAVE to learn how to get up and dust themselves off after failure. That was what today was about!
Their first challenge was to build the tallest freestanding structure using 20 pieces of spaghetti, 3 feet of tape, 3 feet of yarn, scissors, and TEAMWORK! Oh, and they had one large marshmallow that HAD to be at the top of their structure, whole and in tact. It had to be done in 20 minutes.... Simple, right?
Not simple at all, this is hard, even for adults, so it was no surprise when only 2 of the 8 teams had any success and it was minimal. There were tears, there was anger, there was blame, but from that came some BEAUTIFUL conversations about the importance of teamwork, how to handle frustration, using problem solving skills, and ultimately, how to handle the disappointment of failure .
Most failed, but they all survived! The world kept spinning, we still had recess, the cafeteria still made us a delicious lunch, even though we bombed a project!
In the afternoon, they got the news that they would get a "Take 2". The rules and supplies were almost the same, the only changes were that they got 20 small marshmallows instead of 1 large one, and nothing had to be at the top of the structure.
Guess what! All teams had standing structures and giant smiles after their 20 minutes of building! After it was over, we had one question:
If you hadn't been faced with the challenges you had this morning, do you think you would have been as successful this afternoon?
They GOT IT! They understood! Sometimes you MUST fail in order to succeed and failure is a wonderful teacher.