Treasuring Teamwork
Seven weeks ago Discovery learners began their journey hammering, nailing, screwing, gluing, and most of all navigating a studio team challenge to create an Acton farmers market stand. The journey began with great excitement and naturally some struggles. Here’s the story of their journey, dragon, and ultimate treasure.
Week 1 learners were ecstatic to begin this hands-on challenge and after looking at the instructions and organizing all the pieces of wood, learners charted on their course to assemble. Some learners began to lead right away and throughout the first few weeks it trended that 2 to 3 learners worked on the market stand at a time and rotated the work load. There were a few times where many learners had to hold the stand upright while one learner glued and another learner hammered. These were picturesque moments where all learners were physically invested in teamwork, it was beautiful.
Of course disagreements of the next step, what pieces connected and how, or whose job it was to glue next ensued however these were minor squabbles throughout the process. A bump in the journey was when it came time to attach the lower tilted shelf to the frame. Gasp! The shelf didn’t fit! Learners problem solved, realized they reversed an instruction, and ultimately had to consult with our Acton expert, a handy wood-working parent. All was sorted and off they went with a finished product. The start of the final week of Session 6 was the time for learners to paint. For some reason agreeing upon artistic expression made for a pressure cooker for this team. They voted on what part would be blue, green, the overall design, but when one learner didn’t get her way there were a few stomps and dramatic tears. Some learners chose to concede and others ignore. To us, this was a fascinating social experiment and the early birth of the dragon.
Fast forward to Session 7 week 1, the garden was exploding so learners were urged to implement their market stand paint plan. This particular day I guided them to grab materials and head outside to paint and after 30 minutes of beautiful independence and a lovely start one learner’s artistic doubt crept in and he went rouge. The plan started changing. I walked over and probed “You all voted on how this stand would look. Is it ok to change the plan in the moment even though it took a long time to agree?” They hesitated, thought for a second, and after one learner shared “yeah, no big deal” they all followed in agreement. During day 2 of painting all of a sudden I found a once brightly colored market stand with carrots and vines to be 100% covered in thick black paint. We discussed and learners all agreed this went too far, this had to be fixed! Rogue ideas and doubt of skill were the teams biggest distracting dragon! The final result was learners agreed that they were still committed to their first plan and that they had to create a “fix” plan. This tough moment seemed to shift them all.
The final day, day 3, learners decided that everyone needed a specific job. “He’d be great at the vines because his details are awesome”, “She draws fruit really realistically so she’ll do the top of the stand”, “I’m great at organizing so I can help give everyone paint and keep materials fresh”, and so on. Learners finally became efficient, were cheering each other on, stayed focused on their job, and they were the definition of a team—no hero left behind! Later that day during Closing Launch I asked learners a typical question “Did anyone find treasure today on your day’s journey?” One learner quickly raised his hand “Today, I found that the whole studio found our treasure of team work! This was the first time we could finally do it!” Every learner agreed and smiled ear to ear. Pride in their final product was obvious but pride in their team is their greatest treasure. They are all heroes!