‘Circle Up, Circle Up’ – Madhuri P, 100th Monkey Facilitator, FSL India’

‘Circle Up, Circle Up’ – Madhuri P, 100th Monkey Facilitator, FSL India’

My sessions usually start with a “Circle Up” song, where everyone forms a circle. Most energisers and activities are conducted in a circle along with the facilitator, as it helps to create inclusion, builds trust, togetherness and safety.

However, I have never seen a complete circle formed. There is always a gap between a full circle, forming 2 semicircles, one of which is of boys and the other being girls. This shows the level of comfort they have with each other even after being together for almost 7 years since Standard 1. But still, I never forced them to fill in those gaps; I would facilitate the activities keeping their emotional safety intact. Sometimes, this is the best thing to do, letting them be the way they want!

This used to happen in team building activities, as well. Team building activities help us in building a community together and promote team spirit, build connections, communication and positive interactions. When teams were formed combining boys and girls, they would be very hesitant to even initiate the communication required for completing the activity. Nevertheless, they would finish any activity that they were given with a lot of hesitation.

In the 2nd session of the team building activity at St Teresa’s School, I witnessed something peculiar. Each team was asked to build the tallest tower possible, they were provided with some newspapers, cello tape and a pair of scissors for this activity. The teams were formed by asking the students to count from 1 to 5. When they had to team up according to the number they got, as expected, this did not happen. Some just wanted to join other groups, some wanted to do this activity with their friends etc etc.

After all this shuffling happened and the teams were formed, one boy and a girl remained. These two wanted to stick to their team and did not want to join any other team nor pair up with each other (again that comfort zone).

I gave them a chance and told them they were free to go and join any team they wanted to! To my surprise, after a minute of thinking, both the boy and the girl decided to do the activity together and not join any other team. It was a very happy moment especially for me as facilitator to witness this, as the motive of facilitating the team building activity is to build a connection, positive interactions, promote team spirit, and build trust, which was seen taking shape.

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