Hello Overlake Community,
Did you know, in 1968 3M was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive? Instead, they accidentally created a “low-tack” adhesive used in PostIt notes to this day. 3M turned the byproduct of an accident into a valuable tool used around the world. In experiential education, we would call this emergent learning.
Friday marks the end of Upper School Project Week. Project Week is often about students stretching themselves, trying something new, breaking out of the ordinary school day/week, and making new relationships with students and teachers whom they might not have had opportunities to in the past.
This year the entire Project Week program has also embraced the student experience to stretch itself. We pivoted to on-campus and virtual experiences in order the focus on the key pillars of the program: experiential education, challenge, group process, and reflection. In the process, we have produced more creative, low-cost, on-campus projects than I have seen in my 8 years at Overlake. These projects will be a resource of ideas for more diverse offerings in years to come. Many of our students have also learned to be more resilient, practice self-care, and developed their executive functioning.
This may have been an off-year for Project Week and our community as a whole, but what we did was take the circumstances of a pandemic and create valuable tools and resources that we can utilize for years to come.
