Reflection 1

At the beginning of the Excel Teacher Cadet program, all of the other strands that are connected with the Excel Program went to boot camp at Metro. Boot camp was for three days and everyday we went, we had to do a teamwork activity and one of the activities we did was called "ball and string." With this activity we all got in groups of five. There was a ball on top of a pipe that was on the ground and everyone in the group had five strings and a medium sized metal ring. With those materials, everyone had to put their strings through the ring and without using our hands, put the ball inside of the cup that was attached to the wall. In this activity, I learned that communication skills and collaboration are important because without us collaborating and communicating in the right way without arguing, we got the job done and won. This activity was very competitive because we were timed and we were all trying to win. After this activity, I realized that being a leader is most definitely something I should take advantage of and I say that because while doing this activity, I was the one who was telling everyone how we were going to pick the ball up, which was by me pushing the ball onto the ring, then everyone moving up really slowly in order to place the ball into the cup.