Last Friday the students at Chesterbrook did an activity called Lap Sit. To begin this activity the students gather up in a circle and stand one behind the other. The important thing is for them to stand close to each other. Once this is done the objective is to have them all sit down at once so that each student is sitting on the lap of the student that is behind them. Surprisingly this activity has a lot to do with teamwork.
When Eddy asked the students to gather up in a circle to do the activity many of the students rejected the idea. There were only a few students that wanted to do the activity. Later Eddy said that he would bring in the new XBOX 360 next week if they all tried to do the activity. I thought this would convince and motivate the students to get started, but the response was that the students were skeptical of the idea. They didn't believe that he would bring it in so they further questioned him. Some of the students questioned me to see if he really had it. I knew that he had one so I told them that he did. After getting enough evidence more students came to the circle to try the activity. It seems that each week the students have been consistently more motivated by rewards than anything else. Rewards definitely give students the needed incentive to complete the activities. Once the circle was made the remaining students came. Before we started the students requested that the Bentley students join them and also do the activity. This surprised me because adding us into the activity would make it much more difficult for the fact that we all have a different height and weight.
The circle was made and it was time to sit down and see if it all works. I was a bit skeptical that it would work since the student behind me was half my height and wait. We all slowly tried to sit down and everyone instantly fell down. Almost everyone started to laugh. Since the activity did not work out the first time the students were eager to try it again and make it work. During the second attempt the students decided to stand closer. This time everyone was sitting down for a few seconds and then one part of the circle fell apart and everyone else fell down. At the third try the objective was accomplished where everyone was sitting in the circle without falling down. After the third try it was evident that trust is a very important aspect of this activity. If one person did not trust the team then the circle fell apart from that one person onward where it created a chain reaction. Even though everyone's height and weight was different I was able to realize how the whole activity worked. Later we explained to the students how each person is supporting one another and therefore strengthening the whole team.
To add another twist and to make the activity more challenging, Eddy explained that everyone had to do it over except this time the whole circle had to sit and walk at the same time. This took much more effort, but after many attempts the group was able to accomplish this objective. Once the objective was met the kids cheered in happiness. It seemed that everyone had a lot of fun in doing the activity and were really able to understand the true essence of teamwork.
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