Asking More Questions Than the Students…
…seems to be a fantastic way to faciliate learning.
Whenever a member of my Cardboard Club asks a question, my first goal is for them to answer it on their own. Of course, I am there to give guidance and provide my expertise… but they are the ones who ultimately do the learning, and my just giving them the answers won’t help grow their curiosity in the long run.
Through leading these workshops (meetings) I am learning more and more about constructive teaching practices; such as leaving room for creativity, constantly adapting, allowing room for a little risk, asking for constant reflections, and encouraging teamwork (to name a few). The list continues to grow as I continue to challenge the group of boys with the medium of cardboard.
“Teamwork Towers”
This past Monday, February 10th, Cardboard Club undertook my “Teamwork Towers” challenge. (Because really, it was a hugely fun experience with a lot of moving parts, and deserves the name “challenge” above the bland “workshop” title.) We had five of the six boys return, so an adult stepped in to make it an even six.
The idea was decently simple: Split the boys into teams and have them make a tower. Covering the “Teamwork” and “Tower” parts of an aptly-named workshop. But I wasn’t about to leave it at that.
Even the splitting of the teams was strategic. Last week at the first meeting, I noticed two of the boys were quiet and already friends, so they had kept to themselves and not branched out to meet the other members much. So I made them team captains.
Everyone loves being a team captain, so they hardly noticed that I had purposefully split them up. I soon had 3 members each on team pink and team blue, inspired by the colors of the mechanical pencils I’d brought. Before they started, I warned both teams that if any member cut or burned themselves, the whole team would be disqualified; I showed them their limited supplies including a measly five hot glue sticks and only one of each tool; and I warned them about the intermittent challenges to come…
“FREEZE”
The first challenge was simple: at a random time, I would say the word “freeze” and the last team to stand completely still would have to take a time-out from building for 60 seconds. Mind you, I did this challenge first, so they were in quite the frenzy when I sat down at the table and whispered “freeze.” to which team blue was responsive, and a member of team pink nervously rocked back and forth at. Team blue won. Construction continued, with a delayed start for team pink.
“Tower Swap”
As they continued developing the base of their towers, both teams became more and more proud of—and attached to—their work. So 20 minutes in, I called a time-out. “Team Pink, pick up your pencils. Team Blue, do the same. Now switch towers.” If I’d have waited any longer for this challenge, there may have been an all-out brawl. But as it stood, there was just little enough finished that they accepted their fates shortly. Construction continued, with teams rethinking their game plans according to the new foundations before them.
“Cleanest Crafters”
Time really flew in this meeting. The hectic collaboration on completely unstable structures paired with the frantic energy surrounding the spontaneous challenges created a buzzing room. Nobody was bored, I can promise you that.
To snap the members back to reality, I paused them again at 30 minutes. This time I had prepared a spectating parent to look and see which teams’ area was cleaner. And it’s a good thing I prepped her, too, because once I explained that the cleanest group would get extra supplies, the pink team tried to straighten their area despite instructions to freeze. It was to no avail, however, as the blue team’s space was deemed cleaner (to no surprise of me, as the adult participant was in the blue team). The blue members were each awarded with a selection from supplies including unlimited glue, tape, tall cardboard tubes, full size hot glue, and more. They made their selections and continued construction with 20 minutes remaining. Shortly after, a member of the pink team even said something aloud about keeping their workspace clean, proving that the lesson had been learned.
The Cutting Challenge
With 10 minutes to spare, I asked each team to choose a volunteer for a challenge, giving the hint that these volunteers should be confident in their knife skills. Each team chose a member, and then I told them the two volunteers would not be returning to their team to finish the towers, but instead would be competing head-to-head for a Golden Craft Knife (I almost wrote “XActo Knife” before remembering it was Westcott brand, and XActo isn’t a type of knife—it’s a company). Blue team immediately started cheering on their volunteer as the challenge was revealed:
On two pieces of corrugated cardboard (one for each competitor) I had drawn what I see as a simple crown with a circle in the middle. The boys’ challenge was to cut this out using XActo knives, and whichever was deemed best cut, won. 8 minutes later neither of the boys had fully cut out the crown (likely in part because I warned them if either cut themselves they would automatically lose—so they were being extra careful—and because the corrugation was extra tough, especially compared to the cereal boxes they had previously learned on) One had cut out the crown shape but only partially the circle, and the other had cut out the circle but only partially the crown. There was no more time, and there had to be a winner. And to have a winner there has to be a loser.
At this point I realized I didn’t like the competition idea because of the idea of that latter: a “loser”. In that moment I wanted every member to feel equal, and felt like giving only one of them the prize was detracting from the other’s self-worth. This is coming from the same boy who is used to winning. Even back in 5th grade, the graduation/awards ceremony had me standing up every few minutes to receive a new certificate or pin. I was never on the losing side, really, and even if I was, I knew I could’ve worked harder and felt undeserving of the award anyways. But here, deciding which 11 year old to hand the golden knife to, I felt conflicted. After only knowing the boys for a total of 3 hours, I already felt an emotional attachment to them—a kind of fierce care—and wanted only their success.
One of the boys won the golden knife, and he was happy. The other boy seemed to be alright with the situation. But I can’t stand the idea of him growing up resigning himself to the losing side. For future “competition” in Cardboard Club, there will be no “losers”. We are all creating, and it is not for the goal of being better than others, it is for the goal of bettering others.
The “Exit Chat”
The first meeting left me with next to no time to ask the boys reflective questions—my primary form of educating/learning. This time I knew I needed to leave time for more discussion to drive home the points that a silly exercise like building towers out of cardboard can teach. Here were the questions I had prepared:
Who did you get to know better through this workshop? Which tower was your favorite? What was the funnest part of the process? What did you learn about teamwork and working together? Who was the MVP constructor of your team? What was most difficult about the tower building? Which tower do you think should win? Do you wish you had more time? more tools? Which challenge was the most difficult? most enjoyable? What crafting skills do you want to improve? How can I improve future meetings? Who all has taken Geometry and knows what a “net” is? Did you have fun? Did you learn something?
When every team member pointed to their teammates in response to the “Who did you get to know better…” I should have been less surprised. I suppose I was just pleased it had worked! Those two boys I had split up as team captains were no exception: they too got to know their teammates a little better.
Questions like “Who was the MVP…” had the teams complimenting each other, building one another up with praise of their contributions, making everyone feel like a valued member.
After the rushed construction, they all certainly wished they’d had more time, and suddenly the example tower I’d brought in looked a bit more impressive… (even if I did spend five times longer on it)
What really got me though, was the captain of the blue team’s response to the “Did you learn something?” question I’ve commited myself to asking after each meeting.
It took him a bit. First, his response to “Did you have fun?” was a quick absolutely, but he sat there for a minute considering what he may have learned through the whole thing. I was about to say we skip him and come back, but then he said this:
“I learned that we aren’t supposed to only have one friend.”
“Why do you say that?” I responded, my metaphorical jaw having dropped at the depth of the response. “Well, Jesus had a lot of friends, so he wants us to have a lot.”
An incredible answer.
And yet another reminder of the impossible nuance of communication. Never can one person control every aspect of communication. I never would have imagined an answer so perfect. I mean, I just told them to make a tower for crying out loud! Yes, the intention to learn aspects of teamwork was there, but they didn’t learn exactly what was in my mind…
they learned what formed in their own mind.
