Several weeks passed; the new year had arrived. Earlier in December, the Program Committee had taken Kevin’s suggestion and sent a video message to school officials. In it, the narrator reviewed each term found in the Program booklet which could be misinterpreted or had become controversial and explained the terms’ precise meanings. They had paid attention to Jeremy’s blog articles, too, and properly and unambiguously defined the terms in question.
Also, Denise had met with a few ed school faculty and found two who were enthusiastic and whom she thought would be good as eventual project leaders. They interviewed a number of students, third year and master’s candidates, and settled on eight, four male and four female, who appeared to be the best qualified. One of the things that the project study had found was that most classes worked best when led by a male and female team.
Over Christmas, the Porters invited Kevin, Denise, and Amelia to celebrate the day with them and any embassy staff who had no place to go for the holidays. Amelia got Jeremy a sports watch and Jeremy gave Amelia a charm bracelet with little charms which depicted some of the things she loved—a tiny laughing-weeping mask for theater, a football-soccer player, a floral bouquet, a little book for her love for reading, a heart engraved with “I love you,” a bicycle, and a few other charms. She was thrilled and delighted with the gift and the thoughtfulness behind Jeremy’s selection of each charm.
So it was now a week before school resumed and Denise and Kevin had set up a training session for the eight education students to familiarize them with the project. They used one of the multipurpose classrooms at Norwich Academy and covered the floor with mats. When the group assembled for the first day, Denise greeted them and introduced Amelia and Jeremy.
“Okay, guys, you’ve met Kevin and we told you how we were involved in developing the Avery-Denison Program. Amelia and Jeremy have been our guinea pigs for the British version and have done all of the one-on-one exercises you’re gonna learn here. Our program has three main parts: familiarization and bonding; building trust and teamwork; and developing empathy and connections to others. Each of these components has a general script and timeline but there’s plenty of latitude to allow concentrating on things that work well or if a there’s a hitch, to try some alternatives.
“The first part that we’ll start on now is the bonding. Any of you know each other?”
Of the eight, only three knew each other somewhat, but while most had seen each other on campus, they were all effectively strangers.
Denise continued. “Now comes what may be a difficult part. The children in the project classes wear their PE kits but for you, as their teachers, it’s essential that you have the most intense experience so you’ll be able to project your enthusiasm to the children. We told you to bring your swim suits and implied that we’d be using the pool. Actually, swim suits will be the official class costumes here. There are two rooms over there, see? One has a paper sheet with ‘M’ on it and the other has ‘W.’ Go to those rooms and get changed.”
They began moving to the rooms but one of the girls came to Denise and another hung back as if she wanted to talk too.
“Denise, I’m pretty shy about being in my swim costume—is that really needed?” she asked quietly.
The other girl came up. “Me too. I don’t feel comfortable.”
“Actually, it’s really very important. We told you that this project is being evaluated to replace the Naked in School program, right? We found that the Avery program works well in meeting all of the principles of the naked program and showing a little skin is lots easier than total nudity. Could you have done the Program with the nudity?”
“No!” one girl shuddered and the other blanched. “I remember that they tried to start it at uni. God, was I relieved when that didn’t happen.”
Denise grinned. “But we’ve anticipated you, in case some of you were modest. Go change and you’ll find some coverups in the girls’ dressing room you can wear. Okay?”
“Oh yes,” they chorused.
Soon the group was reassembled and Denise and Kevin led them through one round of the bonding exercise, using Jeremy and Amelia as their models. It turned out that one of the modest girls was touch-shy, too. Kevin led her over to a corner of the room, behind a screen, and began working with her while Amelia took her place with her partner.
Denise then had the group change partners and midway through the second round, Kevin emerged from behind the screen with his partner, who was red-faced but radiant.
“Um, can I take Amelia’s place now?” she asked shyly.
“Sweetie, why don’t you finish this round with Kevin right here, okay? Then the next round you can.”
The group ran through a third round and Denise called a halt for discussion.
“Well, judging by all the sighs and giggles and whispering, I’m guessing that some ice was broken,” Denise said as she looked around, smiling.
Several couples were sitting together, holding hands.
“What emotions did you feel hit you the strongest? And which of the exercises was the most emotionally intense?” she asked.
A spirited discussion began, with the universal opinion that it wasn’t a single exercise; it was the psychological buildup that caused their intense emotional experience. Janet, the girl who had been with Kevin, was glowing about her breakthrough.
“Kevin was... my god, just amazing. Girls, you gotta do a round with him. He was like a security blanket; I felt just enveloped by his aura and I forgot that I was shy. Kevin, can you teach us to do that?”
Kevin grinned. “You all can learn it. Jeremy has the same talent; we developed it in studying the Eastern martial Arts. You’ll find that about 5 to 7 percent of the kids you’ll be teaching have some degree of touch-shyness. The milder forms are common and are easy to work with, while more serious forms can be a manifestation of what’s called ‘social anxiety disorder’—remember that from your psych classes?”
They did.
“There are more severe forms too, but those tend to be somewhat rare and you can spot kids like that fairly readily since those kids exhibit other behavioral issues. Denise and I worked up a coping protocol to be used with touch-shy kids in the Avery Program. Janet, not to embarrass you or put you on the spot—you told me you could tell this to the group—what did you feel happen with me?”
“Well, I don’t really have a serious aversion to being touched, but I do feel kinda anxious when someone gets too close, gets in my personal space. A lot of people are like that, I think. Kevin was... it was amazing how he knew what to do. We sat at arm’s lengths and he leaned in and took my hand. It felt okay. Then he told me to close my eyes and feel his hand all over and then he gave me his other hand. He told me to memorize how they felt—you know, the stuff we just learned. Then he asked me if I knew how blind people read other people’s expressions, face reading with the hands.
“I knew about that and said so. He told me to keep my eyes closed and tell him what emotion was on his face, and leaned forward so I could reach him. We went through a bunch of expressions and then he asked me to open my eyes. I didn’t realize that I had moved way closer to him and now we were sitting so, so close! He slowly reached out and stroked my face and asked how it felt. It was okay. Then he asked if I felt okay moving even closer to him and I found I could.
“Kevin told me that my moving toward him was my allowing him into my space; I gave him permission to be there because I had initiated the movement. I never knew! Then he led me through the exercises, letting me be in control about how close I came to him. He was incredibly gentle and soothing and when I closed my eyes, I just felt comforted and secure. And that showed me that I could cope with my feelings when I’m threatened by someone getting too close to me. Oh, Kevin, thank you!”
“Geez, Janet, I’m glad I helped. I’ll get my bill in the mail to you tonight.”
Everyone cracked up laughing.
“Guys, we didn’t expect to do the advanced stuff, like the psych-connected items, so quickly in our intro,” Kevin went on. “This is a terribly sensitive area and you have to tread very carefully, like avoiding giving the child the impression that they’re somehow to blame for their feelings. Another major danger to avoid is having the child becoming fixated on you emotionally, but you also need to keep your trusting connection with them and never seem aloof. When we get to describing what the peer mentors do in the program, you’ll see how this potential problem becomes very significant. Any questions before we continue?”
“Yeah,” one of the guys said. “Do you always do girl on boy and vice versa with that?”
“Oh yes we do, Mitchell,” Denise answered. “And I know your followup question. What if the child has a gay or lez orientation.”
“Right.”
“It’s complicated and I won’t venture deep theories; it just works,” she replied. “I’ll tell you my hunch. It’s likely because these exercises explore sensuality and not sexuality. Does that make sense?”
Nods.
“In my sophomore year in college I knew a girl, a committed lesbian, whose very best friend was a guy,” Denise went on. “They were very close; they hugged and kissed each other. But they were both committed to their significant others, she to her lover and he to his fiancée. It confused me until they told me that they made each other feel good and were delighted that their partners liked each other too. Also, we all know women or girls who have close, even fairly intimate relationships with a female friend. But there’s nothing sexual about their relationship; they just mesh. It happens between opposite sex friends too, like that girl I knew—not a romantic attachment, but one based on a different kind of mutual attachment. So there’s more to close relationships than sexuality. If a boy treats a girl in a respectful, considerate manner, being gentle and nonthreatening, she’ll respond to him regardless of her sexual preferences. Is that answer meaningful?”
“Oh yes... wow, that’s ace...” he mused.
“One thing we’ll need to figure out, though,” Denise continued, “is how we’ll include really observant Muslim girls—maybe even boys too—in this class. If their faith won’t permit them to have extensive touching contact with the opposite sex, we’ll need to adapt for them. This never came up in the States so we’re on our own here.
“Before we continue then, does anyone else have thoughts to share about their experience so far?” Denise asked.
No one spoke.
Denise grinned. “I think there are some budding friendships forming. Might I be correct?”
Some chuckles.
“Well, let’s shake it up a bit. Here are your next partners.” She read off four pairs of names to a chorus of groans. “After doing this for three rounds, you all probably know the exercises, so I’ll just prompt you for each step. But we’ll be adding two new exercises this time so watch for them.”
The added two exercises first had the boys sitting behind the girls and gently kneading their necks, shoulders, and upper backs, and next by sitting in front of the girls with the girls embracing them as they stroked the boys’ hands and arms. They completed two more rounds and paused for another break; then Denise told them to just chat among themselves for five to ten minutes. Then she left the room with Kevin to set up their lunch.
Now instead of couples sitting together holding hands, all eight were sitting or lying together in a single large group with everyone mostly leaning against each other, reveling in their close contact.
After a few minutes, Denise returned. “Any new comments?” she asked. “I see you’re all pretty comfy with each other now.”
Chuckles.
“Before we continue, remember that this program was conceived as an alternative to the Naked in School program. That program had a few basic principles which I’ll summarize. First, you’re supposed to become more comfortable with your body and your sexuality. Second, you’re to treat others in natural balance as both individual people and sexual beings. Third, you’re to learn to harness your natural energies. Fourth, you’re to learn to behave in a more mature and morally conscious manner. I wrote those principles on the board up there.
“‘Sexuality,’ as used here, could be interpreted in both of its senses, that is, eroticism or simply gender identity. Humans, by their very nature, are sexual beings; being animals, we have sex imprinted genetically in every cell of the body, so presumably erotic sex shouldn’t be a required component of the Program. But that’s how it turned out when it was put into practice.
“Now about your reaction to these rounds of the bonding exercises. Do you feel the connection to your partners? How strong it is? How do you characterize it, sexual, romantic, or other kinds of feelings? Use the principles on the board to think about your answers.”
One girl raised her hand. “Denise, the feelings I got each time were very strong but also very confusing. I can’t pigeon-hole them. They made me feel close to my partners, not romantically—sorry, guys,” she giggled, “I think I know; I don’t have a brother, but maybe it was like I’d feel with a sibling—that kind of bonding.”
“That’s fairly perceptive, Judy,” Kevin said. “You recognized that feeling early in our program, but it’s exactly the same kind of bonding that happens between soldiers and Marines who train together and learn to trust and rely on each other. They become ‘brothers in arms,’ as the phrase goes. So you felt a hint of sibling bonding. Very good. Anyone else?”
A guy looked hesitant. “Hey Gary,” Denise said. “Don’t be shy, even if you didn’t feel anything much.”
“Shit, Denise, just the opposite! I got hit every time, and hit hard. Erm, yeah, that was a double entendre, sorry...”
Everyone laughed.
“Yeah, hard. I got so turned on, but it was more of a protective feeling than anything else. The feelings I had were like, she’s someone who needs to be watched over, to be protected, kept from harm. Sort of like a parent for a child, I guess.”
“Yeah,” another guy said. “That’s kinda how I felt, too.”
“You know?” a girl spoke. “I had a feeling like Ron’s, but it was more maternal. Not protecting, but nurturing.”
“Very good, Stephanie,” Denise nodded, “but did anyone have romantic feelings or overt sexual ones? Don’t be shy, no one will think less of you for that—this exercise is meant to be fairly intense.”
No one thought their feelings were especially romantic, although there was certainly arousal for both boys and girls but it was a subdued kind of arousal. But they all agreed that the experience was life-altering and thought that the group would remain close friends, especially if the group continued to work together as they had.
“Okay, one last thing before lunch,” Denise grinned. “I noticed a wardrobe change about a half hour after we started the session this morning. Anyone know what I’m referring to?”
Everyone had blank looks and looked around at each other.
Denise walked over to a mat and picked up a coverup, then a second one.
“OH!” exclaimed the two girls who had claimed modesty at the class’s start.
“You don’t have to explain, but you might find it helps if you two want to share your thoughts,” Denise prompted.
Janet was blushing. “You know? I totally forgot I’m only wearing my swimming costume now. Yeah, I felt so comfortable after a while that I took the coverup off. Judy, I noticed that yours was off before my session with Kevin was done.”
“And the funny thing is, I have no recollection of taking mine off,” Judy mused. “Wow, if all this happened to us in one morning, what happens to the kids if they get it for a whole term? Are they brainwashed?”
Denise grinned. “Maybe. There aren’t any published studies yet but our American contacts tell us that among the groups who’ve been in this program, the entire group has completely cohered. No serious rivalries, bullying, fighting. Sounds almost too good to be true, so we’ll see in the longer term. Look at your friends here. How long does it feel you’ve known them?”
The group looked around at each other and then looks of shock appeared on many faces.
“Shit...” one of the guys muttered. “Unbelievable...”
Kevin grinned. “So tell us.”
“Damn. I was gonna say I’ve known them since I started uni, and then realized... Hell, this is dangerous shit...”
Kevin looked at the group intently. “And you’re exactly right. Very dangerous. As was the Naked in School Program. We’ve fucked with your emotional core, your essential being. We’ve burrowed under your psychological defenses and exposed your naked sensitivities. Back in the ancient days, late 1970s and 80s, after the sexual revolution but before the AIDS epidemic began, there were these so-called ‘encounter groups’ in the States—I don’t know if they had them in Britain then. Psychologists are still examining, discussing, and arguing about the results of those encounter groups; the reports of what they accomplished are so confusing, but it’s generally agreed that participants underwent some mind-altering changes. These groups did exercises like we showed you. Not the same ones, but still they were ones which evoked the same emotions as the exercises we showed you. We developed these particular exercises we showed you today using ideas taken from the Eastern tantra philosophy.
“So we want you to experience the power that these techniques can have on someone. You have to watch the kids to be sure the intensity doesn’t become overwhelming. Later on, we have some videos to show you and you’ll see how kids react to doing these things together. It’s powerful stuff. One of the major criticisms our little anti-Program group back in the States had about it was that when kids’ nascent hormonal eroticism was unleashed, allowing them to indulge in wanton promiscuity, much of their moral inhibitions was lost. This caused much misery, as attested by all the cases of abuse and humiliation that’ve been documented. Well, enough philosophizing. We’ve had lunches delivered and we’ve set the meal out next door. Let’s go eat.”
During lunch, Denise took Jeremy and Amelia aside. “Guys, you still comfortable working with the others in the group? You actually looked like you were enjoying that.”
Amelia nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah, this is so cool. I’m having a great time.”
“So am I,” Jeremy agreed. “This group’s brill. I feel so close to them all, too. And they treat us like adults, not condescending like.”
“Good, the next activity you guys haven’t done yet, so have fun.”
They rejoined the group and after lunch they went back to the classroom.
“You saw a bit about how our program suggests dealing with the shy child this morning,” Kevin said to the group after their lunch break. “We have two important guidelines that seem essential to succeeding in overcoming their shyness. First is to never, ever, exert any authority or give the child the impression that ‘doing this is good for you.’ Second, never invade the child’s space. Let him move toward you. You can encourage closer contact but never initiate it. Invite it.
“Another factor is fairly important but we aren’t sure if it’s as essential as the others, and that’s how successful an adult would be compared to a peer, someone close to the child’s age—or perhaps it’s just that the person isn’t an authority figure. This is a question that we hope that our project will answer.
“Something we learned is that the children respond pretty well to empathic—well, call it ‘projection.’ You’ve heard of the idea of a person’s ‘aura’? Good. Well, it’s not imaginary. In Eastern philosophy it’s known as the qi, or chi, it’s the body’s internal energy, but some people can actually project it so others can sense it. I’ll bet you’ve felt people’s auras before—ever encounter someone with a ‘magnetic’ presence? Sure, it’s real.
“People learn exercises to try to get in touch with their qi; it’s best accessed through meditation. A quick way to connect with other people is by using your eyes. By mobilizing your energies and focusing your thoughts on the emotion you want to show another person, like empathy, support, or even love, you can try using your eyes to project the emotion and get a feel for how your body works in letting your energies flow. Kind of enveloping the other person in your aura. Now we’ll show you some basic meditation techniques. This takes faithful practice to fully master but learning it is immensely rewarding. Not just for this project but for your lives.”
For the rest of the day, the group worked on meditation techniques, and Kevin added a new twist: meditation as a couple. He had pairs work together sitting face to face on the mats, hands on their partner’s shoulders, looking into each other’s eyes and trying to get their partner to sense the emotion they were trying to project.
~~~~
The session on the following day began with a round of the bonding exercise; then the group shifted to the team-building activities and moved to the gym.
“Okay, now we’re a team, not couples,” Denise announced. “This element of our program involves the body as well as the mind. When the weather’s warmer, we plan to include some really physical problem-solving outdoor activities that require teamwork to solve. All these exercises are designed to emphasize group cooperation, listening and communication, and problem solving strategies, as well as helping children develop patience when failures cause frustration. You’ll see that many activities stress physicality and physical proximity.
“Let’s start with the ‘All Aboard’ game. See that tarp?” She pointed to a one meter square tarpaulin on the floor. “The object is for all of you to go stand on it; first the boys, then the girls go join them.”
There was much laughter and jostling as they all tried to fit; two of the guys hoisted their partners onto their shoulders to make room.
“Very good,” Kevin complimented them. “Now, you need to flip the tarp over—with no one stepping off it onto the floor.”
“What!” “How can we?” “Oh shit!” rang out.
“Figure it out!” Denise laughed. “Think teamwork!”
After a few minutes of conversation and negotiation, the ten of them began getting the tarp turned over.
When they finished, Kevin asked, “Not too easy?”
“That was intense,” one of the guys responded and the others agreed.
“Let’s do another one,” Denise said. “This is the ‘Magic Talisman’ game. See the rope on the floor here?” she pointed, “and there?” she indicated another rope about twenty meters away. “Now pretend the area in between is filled with boiling lava whose fumes are poisonous. The object is for you all to cross the lava. To protect yourself, you need to have the magic talisman—this ostrich feather—with you as you cross and each of you may only use the talisman one time going one way; it can protect the person while he or she walks over the lava. Also, you obviously can’t throw the talisman to anyone. Let’s start.”
The group got ready to start; then Judy took the talisman and began crossing to the other side. After ten feet, she stopped.
“What... how do we...?” Judy asked, looking at the talisman in her hand, and then at her starting and ending point in confusion. “We can’t...”
Gary asked, “Um, unless... can two people use the talisman at the same time?”
“Let me repeat the rules,” Denise said. “You can do anything except violate the rules.” She repeated them. “Now figure it out.”
The group huddled and suggestions flew; after several false starts they were becoming frustrated; a few were getting annoyed.
“It’s impossible,” Janet grumbled. “Tell us, there’s no solution. This is to show how to accept failure?”
Kevin grinned. “Good try, but you’re wrong. Keep trying.”
Suddenly Simon shouted, “Hey! We can carry someone over and... erm...”
“Yeah, that’s it!” a few others exclaimed. Gary turned to Denise. “Is carrying allowed?”
“Does that violate a rule?” she answered.
Within a few minutes of heated discussion, they worked out a possible strategy.
“But don’t you need to carry two people?” Stephanie wondered.
This problem was worked out and after assigning the boys to do the carrying, soon completed the task. They were laughing at the quite intimate contact the boys experienced and at the “carrying” creativity they used while the boys ferried the girls across to the other side. During the review session, they all agreed that they had overlooked the teamwork objective of the exercise, and thought that it was an extremely challenging activity.
“Now we’ll do the ‘Shark’s River’ challenge,” Kevin grinned. “Remember what you just learned. Your team has to cross a shark-infested river. A storm washed away the bridge, just the bases for the old bridge’s roadway are left. Those are the three one-meter-square low platforms over there. You have a two-meter long plank to use to get from one platform base to the next one; the plank can’t touch the water, obviously. Starting on the first platform, cross the river. You can’t move the platforms, by the way.”
Mitchell took the plank and stepped onto the first platform and the group followed, jostling for room. He began to stretch the plank out to the next platform. It was about fifteen centimeters too short.
“Huh,” he muttered. “Too short. Um. Okay, guys, try this. Someone stand on this end and I’ll walk out, then step over onto the next platform.”
He tried, only to find that the plank started to tip when he got less than halfway across.
Gary said, “Wait! We need a lot more weight at this end!”
That idea worked; they were able to get three people to stand on the part of the plank resting on the platform, which allowed the girls to cross, their being lighter. When the first guy started across, however, the plank started to tip, and they stopped.
“Not enough room on the end here for four people,” Simon observed, looking down.
“Hey, there is if you hoist me up in a fireman’s carry,” Gary said.
One boy was able to cross with the weight of four counterbalancing him. Then they were stuck again.
“Pass the plank over,” Susan called. “We’ll stand on the end here.”
They did, but the girls couldn’t quite keep the plank from tipping when Gary tried to step on its suspended end.
“I know,” he said, and knelt down, his knees at the platform edge. “Ronald, hold my lower legs down,” he said, and levered his body out over the plank, resting his hands at its center, and sliding onto it until he could pull himself upright.
Now, with the weight of two guys holding two girls on the plank’s fixed end, they were able to get the remaining guys over. They repeated that procedure and all moved to the next platform.
“You got that pretty quick,” Denise praised them. “Good job.”
“Let’s do another one,” Kevin grinned. “Remember, these exercises need you to use your heads! This one is called ‘Frenzy!” For our small group, we’ll just use eight, so Jeremy and Amelia will sit this one out. Jeremy, please bring five of those hula hoops over and lay them on the floor in a square ten meters apart, the fifth one in the middle of the four of them. Amelia, get the basket of tennis balls and empty it into the middle hoop. There are fifty balls. Pair up into twos. The object is for each pair of you to attempt to get all of the tennis balls inside the hoop nearest you; once you get all the balls inside that hoop, you’ll win.
“There are only three simple rules. The balls can’t be tossed or thrown. You can steal balls out of other hoops but only after all the balls have been removed from the middle one. Finally, you can’t defend any hoop from being robbed. Questions? Okay, start.”
In a flurry of activity, everyone was rushing around, gathering balls and carrying them to their hoops. Within a few minutes the center hoop was emptied and then the four teams were trying to scoop balls out of other teams’ hoops. After several minutes, all activity ceased, and everyone began looking at each other and their hoops.
“Gaaahhh,” Gary groaned, panting, while the others tried to catch their breath too.
“How about some group strategy?” Kevin called.
The pairs of competitors began whispering to each other, then went into action again, this time trying to hand balls to their teammate to speed up the transferring. It quickly became apparent that no one was making any progress.
“Is this the impossible one?” Janet complained as the others stopped in frustration. “‘Frenzy’ is a great name, but no one’s making any progress.”
“This game is certainly possible to do,” Kevin assured them. “Here’s a hint. Try learning from each other.”
“Huh?” Gary said, confused. “Hey, I know... If you other three teams will let us, can we take all your balls?”
“Yeah, right,” smiled Mitchell. “Fat chance.”
They all looked at each other and then at Kevin.
“Maybe another hint?” Susan pleaded.
“Denise told you when we began today’s session, and I’ll quote, ‘Now we’re a team, not couples.’ That’s your second hint,” Kevin smiled.
After a few hurried whispers among the eight, Gary looked up. “Um, we can work together?”
Denise grinned at him. “You already got two hints.”
“Ah-hah!” Stephanie exclaimed. “But that won’t work, unless... erm, can we move a hoop?” she asked, uncertainly.
“What did the rules say?” Kevin asked.
“Nothing about that... YES! Guys, we can ALL win!” Stephanie yelled.
She picked up her hoop and put it on top of Mitchell’s and Janet’s hoop, then began moving her team’s balls into the circle within the two hoops.
“C’mon, we all win,” she called, and the others went into action. Soon all the balls were inside the circle made by the four stacked hula hoops.
“Sneaky, sneaky,” Janet chided. “Damn, these exercises are way cool.”
Denise laughed. “Teamwork involves cooperation rather than competition. If everyone can win, that’s way better than having one winner and a lot of losers, right? That’s what we want to show. Cooperation is as important as competition in many tasks, so always keep an open mind and look for opportunities for cooperative teamwork when faced with a difficult task. Another essential life skill is effective communication and communication takes two parties: the source of the information and its recipient. Communication is one of the keys to solving problems. One of the goals of this program is to get the kids to be good communicators.”
Kevin picked up a canvas bucket filled with tennis balls. “Okay, here’s your next challenge, so listen carefully.
“This one is called ‘Improvised Objects.’ Look at that length of rope stretched out near you, right there, and that other one fifteen meters away, over there. Now imagine that the ropes are the edges of cliffs, the cliffs have sharp dropoffs and you can’t climb down them. Basically, no one can stand anywhere between the two ropes, even if they could climb down cliffs. Here’s a bucket of tennis balls. Your objective is to get this bucket with all the balls still inside to the other side and no throwing is permitted. That pile of objects over there is for you to use to help you with the challenge. You can use whatever you want of those objects or as few as you need, just get the bucket of balls onto the other side of the far rope.”
The group went to the pile of objects and looked. There was a two-meter long wood plank, a coil of rope three meters long, an inflated bicycle inner tube, a meter square tarp, a cricket bat, a bag of balloons, a broom, a hula hoop, a volleyball, and an empty one-liter water bottle.
Ronald bent down and picked up the inner tube. “We can’t throw it; maybe we can launch it? Like using this tube and the plank as a guide?”
Judy looked at the bucket. “How do we keep the balls in, though?”
“Maybe with the balloons...” Simon mused. “Blow them up and stuff them in the bucket somehow. Hey, maybe put the tarp over the bucket’s top to keep them in and wrap the rope around.”
“Good idea!” Stephanie exclaimed and they set to work, inflating the balloons.
They wrapped the rope around and around the bucket until it seemed secure.
“Um, this is kinda heavy now...” Ronald muttered, hefting the bucket.
“Okay,” Gary said as they set up the plank. “How do we do this? The tube is a little too firm to stretch very much, we need to let some air out.”
They figured out how to deflate the tube but ran into a problem over how to attach it to the plank. Simon figured out that he could use the broom, holding it against the underside of the plank with about ten centimeters of the handle end protruding past the plank’s end, to make a projection to loop the tube around. This allowed the inner tube to be stretched back with the bucket being set into the opposite end of the loop formed by the tube.
“Ready, guys?” Ronald, who was holding the bucket against the stretched tube’s tension, called. “Give me some elevation—not that much! Down a bit... Okay, bombs away!”
He let go and the bucket flew off to the cheers of the group, which quickly turned into sounds of dismay as the bucket fell short and disgorged its contents, balloons and balls flying everywhere.
Kevin gave them the go-ahead to pick everything up and try again.
“Guys, I wrapped that rope as tight as possible,” Ronald assured them. “It stayed together during the launch; it was the landing that popped the rope off. Let’s try it again—but I don’t think we need the balloons this time—they didn’t help with anything.”
When they repeated the launch the balls stayed in the bucket but it still fell five meters short. The third attempt had virtually the same result.
“Maybe we’re overlooking something,” Janet suggested. “I’m not gonna suggest this is the impossible one, either, but I don’t see how any of that other junk can help.”
They all inventoried the pile of objects again, scratching their heads.
Mitchell grinned at Kevin. “Okay, a little hint, maybe?”
Denise spoke. “Remember, I told you when we introduced this challenge, that effective communication is an important part of problem-solving. Kevin will read the instructions again; listen to every word he says, and you can do anything that the instructions don’t forbid.”
Kevin repeated the instructions, word for word, while the group listened with puzzled expressions.
“Humpf. Sounds the same to me,” Mitchell grumped. “Some hint.”
“No... no...” Janet said slowly. “Anything that’s not forbidden...”
“But we can’t just walk over there,” Simon objected. “That’s forbidden.”
Judy shouted, “YES! Kevin said ‘imagine’! Imagine that the rope is a cliff... so we’ll just stop imagining it. There is no cliff—so we can carry the bucket over to the other rope—it’s just a rope.”
Mitchell grinned, “Cool!” and picked up the bucket, beginning to walk toward the rope.
“Wait, guys,” Kevin called. “In the rules, it says, and I quote, ‘Basically, no one can stand anywhere between the two ropes even if they could climb down.’ Not cliffs—ropes. No imagination needed to see that they are still ropes.”
They all groaned and looked at one another again.
“Judy, that was a great idea. Have another one?” Stephanie prompted. Judy shrugged.
Then Stephanie slapped her head. “Holy shit. Guys, remember the solution to ‘Frenzy’?”
They all looked at her blankly.
“WE FRIGGIN’ MOVED THE HOOPS!” she shrieked at them. “C’mon,” she called to Gary, “grab that other end there and let’s move this soddin’ rope.”
She picked up one end of the rope and, holding it in front of her, walked over to the other rope and set it down right next to it as Gary copied her movements. Mitchell followed with the bucket of balls and carefully, triumphantly, set it down on the far side.
Then they turned to look at Kevin and Denise expectantly.
Denise smiled broadly. “Communication means effective listening, too. Good job, guys.”
They cheered and all gathered around Stephanie and hugged and kissed her, praising her thinking, and then turned on Judy and gave her the same treatment.
“You guys are totally fuckin’ evil, you know?” Simon grinned at Denise and Kevin.
Kevin laughed. “We sure are. So let’s try another mind-breaker.”
There was a chorus of groans as the group got ready to hear their next challenge.
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