We talk a lot about teamwork in our room and how things can be achieved when people come together and work on one shared goal. But what does teamwork look like? Well, it looks something like a chain of events that I witnessed in our room. So, it began when our School-age 2 children gathered outside after school with the School-age 3 children (older children group) and one of the children noticed a huge rock in the ground buried underneath the sand. Message got passed on to others and the children decided to get the rock out by hook or crook. Initially, I noticed some children using their hands and fingers to remove the sand around the rocks but they couldn’t use their hands for long. One of the children mentioned that they all can find fallen branches and sticks on the floor, and remove the sand around the rock with that stick by scratching and scraping. That sounded a little silly to me, since that was a huge rock buried deep and with these small sticks, it was going to take them forever to get to the rock. They seemed pretty excited and confident of their ideas. Moving on, the children found sticks and started digging. First day was not a big success but rather, a significant step towards it. To my surprise, as soon as we all met next day, the children found their sticks and they were on their mission again. Second day, they actually made some good progress where the rock was now clearly visible from the top. Eventually we reached to the third day of the week and both groups were still dedicated for the rock. It felt amazing to see them having the constant focus, engagement, discussion with their friends about more effective solutions. Moving on to our special day, which was day four, I heard the collective loudest cheering, screams and happiest faces possible. When I went over, I saw that children managed to get the rock out and now decided to push it away to the other side of the playground with all their energy, so this rock isn’t in the middle of where children run and play. And that’s what teamwork and team spirit can do. This incident is a perfect example of what teamwork looks like in-person.
