"Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." -Roger Lewin
My favorite extracurricular activity for inspiring creativity and building leadership skills in students is the Destination Imagination (DI) program, a creative problem-solving competition where teams of 2-7 students choose a challenge and work together to develop a solution to present at a tournament. Teams that do well move on to the state tournament and perhaps even to Globals. DI challenges range from engineering-based (e.g., build a device to move objects through a course) to artistically-based (e.g., write a play telling a story from three different perspectives) and are designed to encourage holistic, divergent, and innovative thinking skills.
|
I currently serve as a team manager for the Waldorf High School DI team. I spent three years as the DI coordinator for Acera School, serving as team manager for three middle school teams and a kindergarten team, as well as facilitating the whole Acera DI program. I also participated in a similar program (Odyssey of the Mind) as a high school student myself, and I still vividly recall how it helped me learn about myself as a leader.
One unique feature of DI is that team members must do all the work themselves - the parents and team managers cannot provide help, ideas, or "interfere" in any way with the team's progress towards their solution. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of guiding my teams through asking open-ended questions and skill-building rather than telling them what to do.
DI meshes perfectly with my teaching philosophy: "no interference" means students have to construct knowledge for themselves, the year-long challenges provide ample complex questions to grapple with, and the open-endedness allows each team to craft a solution that is meaningful to them for whatever challenge they choose to undertake.
One unique feature of DI is that team members must do all the work themselves - the parents and team managers cannot provide help, ideas, or "interfere" in any way with the team's progress towards their solution. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of guiding my teams through asking open-ended questions and skill-building rather than telling them what to do.
DI meshes perfectly with my teaching philosophy: "no interference" means students have to construct knowledge for themselves, the year-long challenges provide ample complex questions to grapple with, and the open-endedness allows each team to craft a solution that is meaningful to them for whatever challenge they choose to undertake.