Lucas Salaberry, Grade 12
UWCRBC
Walking into the English classroom with a subtle tune of jazz playing in the background, I expected nothing short of practicing essays and going over readings. To my surprise, I immediately got excited when not only were we taking the class to another room, but we were going to play a game for the entire 1 hour and 15 minutes! This instant gratification was thanks to my belief that we were not going to do any work, which in the traditional sense was true.
We started out playing a game of throwing bean bags in a circle gradually adding more. Naturally I thought nothing of it because I was just focused on getting each bag and throwing it to the different people I need to, a very simple and straightforward concept. Next, we were told to position ourselves in the room where we felt the most in power. One person stood in the middle, on top of a table in the middle, by the door, at the whiteboard, and finally someone in the corner. Again, I thought nothing of this, so my mind wandered off until the last activity which had the same focus where we were supposed to make a picture with our bodies and one other person displaying some sort of power dynamic. Guessing who and why was fun, but it was only until we were time to reflect on these “games” that I realized it was much more.
I had done a ton of ice breakers and often times wrote them off as having a singular purpose: to physically move, get to know one another, or just to break up a class so we pay attention better. The bean bag throwing was not just to see if we could throw things, but if we could filter out the chaos and find a system together that worked because if one person did not pay attention, the whole group would fail. The room positions were not just to feel powerful, but to visualize how in a class setting, a meeting, or conversations where a person is with respect to others and the layout matters and we have been conditioned to adopt these perspectives. And the charades type game was not just to see which team could act better, but to notice how body language also plays a role in predetermining our situational roles. We even connected this to the actual English class with the same analysing skills used when reading a comic or watching a movie.
What separated these games from becoming an acting or even trust building exercises was the context and approach, the same way I feel as though UWC separates itself within a general educational setting; it captures a wider lens of skills, issues, and people. My English teacher challenged me and my traditional viewpoints on what I had known a productive to be and that room to breathe and boil things down to their fundamental importance, will follow me in my academic and overall life experiences. Of course, I will still be bored at many of my future ice breakers, but I won’t preemptively underestimate its potential to make an impact and tell a story.
We started out playing a game of throwing bean bags in a circle gradually adding more. Naturally I thought nothing of it because I was just focused on getting each bag and throwing it to the different people I need to, a very simple and straightforward concept. Next, we were told to position ourselves in the room where we felt the most in power. One person stood in the middle, on top of a table in the middle, by the door, at the whiteboard, and finally someone in the corner. Again, I thought nothing of this, so my mind wandered off until the last activity which had the same focus where we were supposed to make a picture with our bodies and one other person displaying some sort of power dynamic. Guessing who and why was fun, but it was only until we were time to reflect on these “games” that I realized it was much more.
I had done a ton of ice breakers and often times wrote them off as having a singular purpose: to physically move, get to know one another, or just to break up a class so we pay attention better. The bean bag throwing was not just to see if we could throw things, but if we could filter out the chaos and find a system together that worked because if one person did not pay attention, the whole group would fail. The room positions were not just to feel powerful, but to visualize how in a class setting, a meeting, or conversations where a person is with respect to others and the layout matters and we have been conditioned to adopt these perspectives. And the charades type game was not just to see which team could act better, but to notice how body language also plays a role in predetermining our situational roles. We even connected this to the actual English class with the same analysing skills used when reading a comic or watching a movie.
What separated these games from becoming an acting or even trust building exercises was the context and approach, the same way I feel as though UWC separates itself within a general educational setting; it captures a wider lens of skills, issues, and people. My English teacher challenged me and my traditional viewpoints on what I had known a productive to be and that room to breathe and boil things down to their fundamental importance, will follow me in my academic and overall life experiences. Of course, I will still be bored at many of my future ice breakers, but I won’t preemptively underestimate its potential to make an impact and tell a story.
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