The secret is out – Odyssey of the Mind (OotM) is a blast! Graland’s program grew significantly this year with nearly 80 students and 20 parent volunteer coaches participating. OotM is “an international creative problem-solving program that engages students in their learning by allowing their knowledge and ideas to come to life in an exciting, productive environment. Participants build self-confidence, develop life skills, create new friendships, and are able to recognize and explore their true potential.”

 

A whopping nine teams represent our school this year, including seven new teams, and each one has advanced to the state tournament, which will be held on April 8 in Fort Collins. The teams’ focus this year has been on long-term problems, which they work on over several months. At the tournament, they present their solution to an audience and judges who score them according to how well they fulfill the requirements of the problem, overall creativity and team work. Even though four teams may have the same problem with the same technical requirements, each presentation is different and reflects the personalities and creativity of the team members. Seeing how other teams solve the same problem provides students with insight that motivates them and sparks even more creativity. Teams learn the strengths of their team members and of themselves, and they learn they must persevere to move ahead. The problems are difficult, and the Graland teams embrace the challenge.

 

In addition to long-term problems, Graland teams also excel in the spontaneous portion of the competition. For most teams, this is the fun part. Although they practice the different types of spontaneous problems throughout the year, they do not know what type of problem they will get until they walk into the room. Whether the teams are brainstorming ideas, building catapults, creating nonverbal communication, making a play on words, using puns or much (much, much) more, they expand their minds and quickly learn to think out of the box and on their toes. The highest scores in the region were received by Graland teams. Way to go, Graland!

 

A big thank you must be given to the amazing coaches, who put in countless hours preparing their teams. Whether a team comes in first, fourth or somewhere in between, the same amount of work is required. The focus is on the journey, and students can be proud of what they create. They had fun and learned many ways to be creative. The memories of Odyssey of the Mind extend beyond the award ceremonies and enhance classroom performance. Graland received four 1st place awards, one 2nd place award, two 3rd place awards and two 4th place awards. That’s impressive; especially considering seven of the nine teams competing were new to the program.

 

Thank you to the amazing coaches, including Alison Gillis, Laura L’Herault, Selena Roth, Dalia EL-Prince, Sebastian de Atucha, Laura Whalen, Kristen Fox, Sara Ali, Samantha Thompson, Christy Anderson, Ron Sachs, Sam Eidson, Joanne and Andrew Wichern, Soojin Kim, Melissa Hatzidakis, Kalliope Balafas, and Aimee Coleman. Thanks also to the families who have volunteered this year to make sure their child’s team had snacks and rides to places to learn more about a topic, who dug deep into their closets to find costumes and who hosted countless practices. As a community, we have ensured the success of our teams.

 

Odyssey of the Mind is a commitment families make for their children to have an experience like no other. The Graland community has embraced the commitment to the hard work it takes to succeed and the sacrifices needed for the journey. As all of Graland’s teams will be represented at the state tournament on April 8, we wish them nothing but the best and hope they enjoy every second of the day. Whether they advance to the world stage or not, everyone in the Odyssey community deserves a great big pat on the back for jobs well done, incredible creativity, time spent working when they wanted to stop, embracing failure to get to success, laughing, thinking, playing, and true team work. It isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding.

Special thanks to parent volunteer Shannon Bell, whose stellar leadership has taken Graland’s Odyssey of the Mind program to the next level.