Odyssey

The kids are in Odyssey of the mind this year. And they are in two different groups. I work with Xander's group and Ginger works with Katie's. These 3rd graders are near impossible to work with. It's like herding gerbils. They are supposed to do everything by themselves and be self motivated, but they just do a lot of yelling and running around. I try to not get involved in telling them how to do things, but it really drives me crazy. The older kids self direct more easily, but they still waste quite a bit of time and there is only a few weeks left for them to bring it all together.
Xander's group has the task of performing the feats of Heracles. They must pick one of the twelve tasks in the original Greek version and come up with an original one as well. Xander is Heracles. Katie's group has only three girls in it and they are doing superstitions. I haven't looked closely at theirs but I understand they have to perform a known superstition and an original one. They also have some pretty harsh restrictions about the use of props. To bad school is going on. I think if they had long summer days to hang with each other they could really get into the swing of things.
Odyssey has the potential to be very enriching and helpful for later life, but I think there should be some sort of on hands training for the coaches in how to give direction without interfering and I feel it would be incredibly helpful for the kids to have some interviews with professionals who play write, act, direct, costume, etc... While there are a number of things the groups go through in the competition the big one is performing a fully self made skit. There are some rules; there are only certain predefined subjects to be used, there are some specifics that must be included and are judged more heavily, there is a time limit and to go over or under is cause for penalty.
I really like the whole Odyssey project, I'm not sure I like being a coach - (I'd love to be one of the kids). Maybe we should strive for an adult version (for adults, not "Adult").