DI - Destination Imagination

And so the season of creative ping pong balls has started again!

Let me back up a little. Three of our children have been/are involved in DI (used to be called OM - Odyssey of the Mind). This is a program that fosters creative problem solving and team working skills. We love it! It teaches them to think outside the box, or as my husband says, "what box?" It teaches them to respectfully work together as a team while under pressure. These are two things we think are crucial and yet missing in so many adults today.

When the kids sign up as a team (often through schools, but not limited to) they are given a list of challenges they can choose one from. After weeks/months of meeting and scripting and building and revamping and practicing the competitions start and today was the first round: regionals. Our relatively small school has a history of doing well and we are again through the first round and will go to the State tournament. Going to "State" is the best reward, they kids work and hope to go to state. Not only do they have the honors of competing at state level, but our school has the tradition to go the day before, and all the DI-kids go out and eat pizza.

There are no words to really describe the atmosphere at these tournaments except..."creative ping pong balls"-all over!! Wherever you look, there are kids with the most creative and hillarious costumes and props and ingenious scripts. They are given a certain amount of time to perform in front of judges during which they need to meet several critiria weaved into a main challenge and one or two side trips. In addition to the prepared performance they also compete in Instant Challenges where they are given a problem to solve, about 10-20 minutes to prepare without and then perform. The kids are not allowed to have anybody outside their team provide solutions or help. They are allowed to ask for instructions to a process they have decided to use, but it is a clear and fine line between helping and providing instructions. The golden rule is basically that they can ask for any information they need but you can only be a source of information, not solutions. You can answer their questions when they ask and only answer the question, not give more information or hints or tips. You cannot help them or do any of the work for them.

And then comes the time for awards. The tears and joys, disappointments and cheers.

Yes, I love it!!