The Cup Game

Today Kerry and I taught our third Junior Achievement class (I missed last week because I was in Dakar saying goodbye to Oliver and Ankith). The classroom we use was occupied by the English Club when we arrived who took the opportunity to perform a skit they had been working on for us native speakers. I was really, really impressed by their level of English and the material that they decided to cover. The skit was about what the youth of Africa can do to change the continent for the better and even included a full length song mid skit. I'm always impressed by Senegalese skits. They really go all out, which is surprising since most students are so reserved in class.

Last week's JA less was about choosing an executive board and today's lesson expanded on that idea by introducing an organizational chart and supporting roles to the executive board. A president, VP, finance chair, secretary, and HR person were elected during session two and further roles were doled out today. In order to show how important communication is between board members and with people below the executive level we played "The Cup Game."

This is a game loathed by Katherine and played at girls' camp only when Katherine was in town on shopping trips. In "The Cup Game," each team is given 10 cups and a equal length strip of tape. The teachers go into another room and create a cup sculpture then one person from each team, in our case the president of each imaginary company, goes and looks at the sculpture for 30 seconds two times. The president then, without moving his/ hear hands, has to explain to the rest of his team how to replicate the sculpture. It's much harder than you think and some of the teams struggled, but I think everyone really enjoyed the game. It also was a great segue to discuss teamwork and communication.

Junior Achievement is really starting to take off. Kerry has been doing a great job at churning out the lesson plans after we discuss them and getting them to the teachers at the Lycee Technique who have started to take on greater roles with each class. The students are also starting to understand and fall into the rhythm of the class, which is great. We have a long break coming up due to spring/ Easter vacation, independence day, and a couple of other things so we wont be teaching again until the last week in April which is good for Kerry's and my schedule which are filled with visitors and vacations!