3 minute read
Mind Games
LIKE A LOT OF PARENTS, DEBORAH BALDWIN FOUND HERSELF INVOLVED WITH SCHOOL ACTIVITIES THROUGH THE PARTICIPATION IN CLUBS AND ACTIVITIES BY HER KIDS. Odyssey of the Mind was one such activity.
“My daughters did this activity at Holy Souls, and I was a judge in that,” Baldwin said. “When my oldest went to Mount St. Mary, there was a mom who wanted to start the Odyssey of the Mind program, but she had a family problem and asked me if I would do it. I thought, ‘I can do this for a couple years.’”
That was 26 years ago, and Baldwin is still going strong as one of the coaches of Mount’s program. In that time, she’s helped lead the Belles to national and international prominence in Odyssey of the Mind competitions. The program’s highest placement, third at the world finals, came in 2015.
Baldwin credits students’ loyalty to the activity as one component of its sustained success.
“Over this many years, I think I only had two or three students who chose not to continue,” she said. “I think it’s the level of commitment to the program and to each other that makes the difference.”
The competition revolves around problem solving. Teams are given their choice of five problems to solve with certain conditions such as having to use specific materials or elements as part of the solution. Teams create skits to address the problem; the more creative and complete the performance, the more points the team is awarded.
There is also an extemporaneous aspect where the team doesn’t know the problem until they enter the room with the judges and must make up a solution on the fly, again incorporating any elements or special twists. The process is complicated by using elements which at first glance appear to have nothing to do with the problem at hand.
“OM really likes to use things for a purpose other than what they were created for,” said Lucy Nimmo ’22, a third-year Odyssey of the Mind participant. “OM really makes you work smarter, not harder.”
The benefit of the activity, Nimmo said, is how it changes the way one sees problems and potential solutions.
“OM really supports thinking of things in different ways,” she said. “I’m an art student, and it has really helped my art. I want to use materials for other than their intended purpose. I’ll look at a plastic tub and think, ‘That would be perfect to make something out of,’ even though it’s so crazy and it’s such a weird way of thinking.”
The process also teaches team members to leverage each other’s personal strengths toward a common goal. Baldwin said this naturally leads to greater respect among team members as each brings an essential skillset to apply to the problem, without which the team is not as successful.
“They learn things about encouraging each other, how to forgive each other when they screw up, how to be patient with people who don’t have their same skillset, how to teach each other,” she said. “One of the things OM prepares girls for in any field they go into is how to interpret problems.
“People usually go for the yes/no, black-and-white answer to things. But we re-read the problem all the time, getting out and looking at it again and again to see if we are analyzing it correctly. You also have to learn how to plan, how to schedule, how to prioritize, how to delegate. Which are, of course, all the things that one uses in the workplace all the time.”
Nimmo credits the activity with greatly enhancing her time at Mount St. Mary through a myriad of experiences that will serve her well into the future.
“It took a second to adjust because OM really teaches you to think outside of the box, and I was used to more structured activities in middle school,” she said. “OM showed me a different way to look at problems and how to best fix them. It helped me open up, and motivated me to think differently.”
