“When the water in the harbor goes up, all the boats rise.” – Chinese Proverb
The other day as we were driving home from the camp Miss O is doing this week, she grumbled, “It’s not fair that we lose as a team.” She explained further that the camp motto is we win as a team and lose as a team. Earlier that day some people on her team had not been listening to their counselor so the whole team had to sit out for three minutes.
I’ve been volunteering at this camp every afternoon this week so I’ve had a chance to observe some of the brilliant team building activities the campers have been doing. In one, they needed to traverse a course set up with strings that have bells attached. Then can go over the strings or under the strings but if a bell rings, they become “blind” and have to ask for help from someone who is doing the course but not blind to lead them to home base where their sight is restored. Then they start the course again.
Once someone gets to the end of the course, there is a bowl that they need to deliver back to home base. Except the person carrying the bowl can only hold it for 5 seconds and they can’t move their feet while holding the bowl. If they hold it too long or move the feet, the bowl goes back to the beginning and they start again.
Watching these 6-8 year olds, it was fascinating to see how they managed these tasks. First, they all seemed pretty willing to help their teammates when they were blind, even if it meant having to start over themselves.
For the bowl passing part, they clearly needed to create a bucket brigade but were too excited by the instructor counting down the seconds they could hold it, “5 – 4 – 3” that they had trouble organizing themselves. They rarely held it more than 3 seconds and everyone crowded around the bowl instead of stringing themselves down the line so that they could be passed to.
The bowl went back several times, usually because someone moved their feet while holding the bowl, once when they were just feet away from the goal – but they stuck with it and eventually got it done. They won as a team.
But do we, in the bigger picture, also lose as a team? Climate change, poverty, drinking water for all, public health – it appears we are all affected by these issues, some more and some less. And yet we forget that we have to work together to solve these big problems. Perhaps we all need to go back to camp.
What do you think? Is it fair that we lose together? Are we remembering to celebrate our wins together?
Surprised By Joy 