Hey everyone. This is Dave, bringing you the highlights of our fourth session with the Brazilian students of Pessoa, and man this was a doozie of a session. The students have really been absorbing the lesson of our activities and taking them to heart. They´ve even express their appreciation of the structure of the curriculum that we prepared often referencing lessons from previous activities during the discussion of new activities.
One of the activities we ran today was “Search and Rescue.” During the discussion lead by Uri, we talked about the communication difficulties inherent to the activity and Enrique actually referenced “Active Listening,” explaining that since we could not exercise a proper active learning posture, we had to make a special effort to communicate clearly and to listen carefully. In “Search and Rescue” students work in teams of three to find and retrieve items scattered in the room. Each member has a role: the Retriever, the Seer, and the Speaker, but the catch is, each member of the team has limited abilities so teams have to work together in order to complete their task. The Retriever is the only member that can enter the area where the items are located, so he is the only one who can retrieve the items, however, he is also blindfolded and is not allowed to talk. The Seer is the only member that is allowed to look at where the items are, however, he is not allowed to enter the area to retrieve the items himself and cannot speak. Instead, he must pantomime to the Speaker, who then instructs the Retriever. The Speaker may look at the Seer, but he cannot look or go into the item area and must keep his back to the area.
Search and Rescue
Today, we also ran some of our denser activities. To set the mood, we ran the “Brazilian Dream” activity, an adaptation of MIT LTI´s “American Dream” activity. In this activity students stand in a line with their eyes closed and are then asked to step forward or backwards depending a series of questions relating to advantages or disadvantages they have or had in their life.
This was a great lead into our “Hunger Lunch” activity. In this activity, students are separated into two groups: one group representing a privileged minority who receives an extravagant lunch (in this particular case: watermelon, corn bread, chocolate, cheesy bread, and juice) and another group comprised of the remaining students who represent an underprivileged majority who have to make dues with a subpar lunch (a few cups water and uncooked corn). Mentors create a border between the two groups and police it making sure no one crosses the border or tries to share food across the border. If students try to disobey, mentors are to dissuade them verbally, but will not physically stop them from crossing the border or sharing food. Quite upset with the situation, the majority group tried a number of strategies to get the food. Paulo and Mateos even organized a sitting revolt, refusing to move until they were fed properly. On the privileged side, we had five of the twenty Pessoa students. At first, Ricardo was quite enjoying his privileged access to the food, however, eventually all five of the privileged group wanted to share their food. Flavio even brought the basket of cheese bread to the border to give to the majority group, but Michaela and Susan reminded him of the rules and dissuaded him before he could complete his mission.
The privileged minority enjoying some juice
This was an especially challenging activity for the Pessoa student as they had grown to trust us, and so it was difficult for them to disobey us even if we were being unfair. In the end, we told them about the activity and ran a discussion while we ate the remainder of the privileged group´s food, of which there was still an abundance. What followed was an intense and thought-provoking discussion on social disparity. In the discussion, students talked about how regardless of how far any one of them step forward or backwards, they all had the advantage of being part of Pessoa and of LTI, and that they had a responsibility to share their fortune with other. I could tell that the activity had an impact on the Pessoa group by how quiet and self-reflective everyone was being. Usually during discussions, the Pessoa students have such a good handle on the goals and lessons of the activity and it seems like everyone trying to share their insights and opinions. In contrast, during the “Hunger Lunch” discussion, it seemed like they were out of their comfort zone and really being challenged. This, to me, is what LTI is all about.
After “Hunger Lunch,” we had a nice change of pace with “Wind in the Willows,” a trust fall activity, re-solidifying the trust we have built between all of us in the program.
Wind in the Willows
We ended the day with Susan´s presentation on the MIT LTI´s Finance committee and a series of discussions on the financial concerns of the Belo Horizonte chapter of LTI Brazil.
Today was a huge day for us as a program. Although it was sometimes painful, I feel we all learned a lot and we´ve become stronger as a program.
