July 4th, 2018

Our session with Kalyehli was cut short today due to the children beginning their exams this week.  We had only 30 minutes, therefore we elected to conduct a team building exercise.  We explained the classic challenge of the river crossing, also sometimes done as a lava flow.  The entire group, using only the objects supplied to them, must get across the river without falling in!  Of course this is only a fictional river and the activity was set up in the courtyard in the front.  Each child was given a disc which they were able to stand on.  Once entering the "river", they must only touch the discs, and if at any point the disc is not being stood on or touched by a participant, it is swept away.  The challenge is to work as a team and develop a strategy which all can follow.

I had high hopes for this group as they get along so well with one another.  Unfortunately, they really struggled with this activity.  Those eager to cross, borrowed items from other children, and got only themselves across leaving their teammates behind.  There was no discussion of a plan, and they looked at it as more of a competition with one another, than a team exercise.  We thought that potentially there was miscommunication in explaining the task, so we did our best to reiterate the necessity of teamwork; however they never really got it together.  We were a bit short on time, so potentially they needed longer to figure it out.  They were a bit confused about the idea of developing their own strategy.  Much of their education seems to be based on repetition and following direction, so this challenge really tested them.

Becca and I feel like continuing team building exercises could be really valuable to this group, and look forward to encouraging to think a bit outside the box going forward.

Michael