By Mika Lund
An employee on Vejle Council comes to the folk high school with a task. He wants to get the school to design a team-building day for 150 employees from various departments in the area of social services. We teachers are the ones who are offered the task, but having said yes to it, all communication takes place directly between the council and a group of students, who are going to work on the project.
The team-building course is constructed as a project course, on which we set up projects with a range of different external partners. This means that learning is related to specific problems that private or public institutions want to have solved. In this way, we try to create projects that comes as close to reality as possible. An important feature for students on the course is that it is their project and their responsibility.
It might consist of an activity day for all the 5th year pupils in the municipality. Or two days of physical and mental work with the police training course in conjunction with an efterskole, a boarding school for teenagers. It might be a sporting event in collaboration with Danish School Sport, or creating an area set aside for physical activity at Jelling Music Festival.
The interpersonal dimension of project work
In addition to working with project management, project tools and team-building, students on the course spend significant time and energy on the interpersonal dimension. On the course, we work with individual personal profiles, and knowledge of the students’ own profiles and those of others form the basis both for the collaboration between individuals on the team and for the development of a group of leaders. The team-builders, for example, are themselves involved in defining what good leadership means for them. They develop criteria to decide what the management of the project should look like and how they can find the right leadership to manage a particular project. This gives rise to some really good discussions internally and generates a host of reflections and viewpoints on qualities and values among different individuals and characters. It is not always easy for the group, since personal preferences can cut across sensible decisions that have been arrived at rationally. Students are forced to put themselves forward if there are particular roles or tasks they wish to perform. At the same time, students often face the dilemma of having to manage each other. It can be hard to have one role outside the class and quite a different one in relation to each other when working on the project.
Communication and working with relations, therefore, also take up considerable space in our pedagogical practice.
Mika Lund
The team-builders are usually good at creating activities and solving the tasks involved in the project. All the students at the school take part in organising activities and events for each other, so this is nothing new for them. Where their work can present a challenge is in relation to the creative process, their internal communication and their internal collaboration. On the other hand, this is also the area where we see a huge amount of learning taking place. Communication and working with relations, therefore, also take up considerable space in our pedagogical practice.
Friction in the group 1
For the biggest project of the semester, the team-builders are going to teach the rest of the student group, about 120 of them, over three days. They are called ‘team-builder days’. They have to decide what everyone else is to do. This means that there is a lot at stake for the group. They really want to perform well and do something truly awesome for their fellow students. As the project progresses, we find that there are many discussions, both major and minor ones, as well as internal conflicts. They are under pressure as regards time, their collaboration and their performance. They have challenges in all areas. This means that they get to see themselves and each other from new angles. They cannot keep their friendly façade in place any longer. And we find that they occasionally react and that conflicts arise.
The final two days before the project is to be realised, the students have their subject day, when they can immerse themselves in one subject. At this point in the project, students are always feeling the pressure to some extent. I also teach on one of the other courses and so am not very familiar with where they are during these days, but I pass some of the boys in the lunch break the day before they have to be finished. I ask them how it is going, to which one of the boys replies, “You want an honest answer?” “Yes,” I say. Then the student lets off steam for ten minutes. The girls are too strict. One of them cannot be bothered to do anything. She cannot cope.
In this situation, I could try to solve the problem for the group, but instead I choose to have a chat about what he might be able to do in this situation. We talk a bit about him having to say things out loud. If he does not do that, the others will not know what he is thinking. It is far from certain that they see things the same way as he does. At the same time, the others have no chance to change the situation if they do not know what is going on.
I know the underlying reason why the student he is talking about is acting as she is. She is struggling to free herself of an eating disorder. When she comes under pressure, as in this situation, she gets flashbacks and remembers how difficult it was for her to cope with everything when she was at sixth form college. I know this, but he does not.
But in truth, the students have learnt more by solving problems together than if I were solving them for them.
Mika Lund
In order to be able to work together, we need to have a dialogue about what is going on and why. So I encourage him to take the issue up with the whole group. We agree that it is essential to have a good internal working environment if the project is to be a success. If the group is to be able to perform to the outside world and stand up and teach all 120 students in the near future, it is important that the experience is fun and positive both for the team-builders and for the rest of the students.
I have to leave the student, since he has to go back to his class, and I have to return to mine. I know that the group subsequently had a talk about the issue. The increased knowledge this gave them about each other provided greater understanding of their differences. As a teacher, it can be really difficult to abandon your students at this moment. I would really like to be able to pursue issues to their conclusion, but here everyday life and practical matters have a part to play – that is just how things are at a folk high school. But in truth, the students have learnt more by solving problems together than if I were solving them for them.
Friction in the group 2
It is 7 o’clock on Wednesday morning. The students are to greet their customers between 8 and 9 o’clock. I walk into the courtyard of the folk high school and hear one of my team-builders shout, “You are such a f****** stupid sh**!” to one of the others.
I consider for a moment what might have gone wrong, how I should deal with the situation and what I can do to move the group on in the very short time there is left.
In this case, I asked them to think about the way they communicate with each other and said that they would have to take the matter up afterwards, when their customers had gone home.
The team-builders succeeded in their project, and the customer never became aware of the conflict.
During this process, our aim is to create a space that can provide trust and security, a space in which the atmosphere permits people to dare to make mistakes and to dare to take risks. They should dare to have high ambitions without being afraid of falling and should be able to learn from their mistakes. We expend time and energy on creating such a space, where students dare to say that they feel under pressure, that there is something bothering them and where they can ask for help. At the same time, it is a space where they can volunteer their services and where they can pull more than their weight if they feel they can. We work on articulating and recognising our strong points and those areas where there are things the individual can learn. Here, honesty and trust are keywords for the maintenance of a good process.
During this process, our aim is to create a space that can provide trust and security, a space in which the atmosphere permits people to dare to make mistakes and to dare to take risks.
Mika Lund
Learning without responsibility
It can be extremely difficult to work out how best to support students’ learning. We believe that giving them responsibility and ownership of projects and at the same time trying to guide and supervise them and give them the wherewithal to deal with problems rather than providing solutions or clearing the pathway ahead of them is the best way to achieve results. As a teacher on a project course like this one, you have a number of different roles to play if you are to get all the students themselves to come into their own.
They have to bring out the best in each other so that they make best use of their resources – and of course this is not something that can work every time. Generally, the students who come through the process are greatly strengthened. They are good at stepping up to the plate and have a clear sense of their own abilities and strengths. Their skills are improved in many areas. So, when we dare to let go and give them a free rein – in a safe and trusting environment – they rise to the occasion, they grow, and they move forwards. And, as teachers, we sometimes have to keep our cool and allow them make mistakes in ways that can benefit them.
