The inquirers in the Rainforest class have moved on and have embarked on a new journey: A new set of topics, challenges, curiosity, and fun await them. To make this new journey exciting, we asked the inquirers to guess what they think the next inquiry will be. Some of the guesses were: Is it about trains? Is it about buildings? Is it about insects? and one replied, again? everyone giggled and filled the room with laughter.

For the provocation, the inquirers had a gallery walk where they were presented with images and videos that depicted teamwork, conflict, and unity. Some of their comments were: “The people in the picture are fighting, but in this picture they were peaceful. The person was angry, and here they were talking to each other. So, I think the next unit is about Feelings or Emotions” and most of the class agreed, but is it really the next topic? What is next?

To draw them closer to the topic, we had a very challenging game, a game that was designed for the team to lose and have conflicts, but did they survive it? How did they handle the activity?

The game is a trendy game for teambuilding, it is called: The Pasta Tower. Each team was given a limited number of uncooked pasta, a restricted length of tape, and a limited time. The task was to make a tower out of these materials. At the beginning of the activity, they were having fun, but while the clock was ticking, conflicts arose, big voices started to be heard from the teams, and more conflicts.

At the end of the game, no one really reached the goal, but why? What went wrong? Their comments were: “This person was not helping us. This person was doing it alone, I wanted to help but nothing happened. This person was playing. We talked but it did not happen, everyone was doing something else”

But what really is Teamwork? Next week we will find out the answer before we delve into the first line of inquiry which is about the causes of conflicts.

See you in the next blog!