Play Ball Toss, You'll Know Everything...

When the 28 students who signed up for fourth quarter Mythology came in the first day, we started by playing ball toss. I learned this game from my guru, Mike O’Leary. “Play ball toss,” he said, “and you’ll know everything you need to know about the class.”

That’s an exaggeration, but not by much. In ball toss, you start by putting the kids in a big circle. On the first day of class, nobody wants to get too close to a stranger. Ask them to form a circle, and they all move as far away from the center as they can.

Then they have to toss a ball back and forth across the circle until everyone has caught it without dropping the ball. If somebody drops the ball, you start over. Once they’ve succeeded, you add a second ball. If they manage that, you throw in a third ball. Few classes get that far.

I make everyone sit down after every drop to debrief: What happened? Why did it happen? What can we do to succeed on the next try? Mike’s right. You can see who listens and who doesn’t, who looks for someone to blame when things go wrong and who takes responsibility, who quits and who finds a way to make it work.

The hardest part is to get them off the idea of individual success or failure, to start them thinking about how the group succeeds. It’s an exercise in problem solving.

With this group, the first time around, a girl named Rachel dropped the ball. We sat down and debriefed. She said she just wasn’t concentrating, and we decided we didn’t need to change the rules yet – we just needed more practice. Second time around, Rachel dropped the ball again.

Now it gets complicated. The person who dropped the ball always feels embarrassed, and talking about why it happened just makes it worse.

“What if you walked into the circle, so the throw isn’t as long?” I asked Rachel.
She didn’t say anything at first. Doing it would make it easier for the group to succeed, but it would also single her out.

Rachel walked into the middle of the circle. Zach, the boy on the other side, also moved in closer to make the toss – and she dropped it again.

We started over. When the ball came round to Rachel, she did one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. She walked all the way across the circle, took the ball out of Zach’s hand, and walked back to her place. Then she threw it to the next person.
They succeeded in passing the first ball around, then two balls, then three. We had plenty of time left, so I raised the bar. I put them in two separate circles, and had them race against each other. No problem.

I was already amazed, so I tried something I’d never tried before. “Can you do it with your eyes closed?” I asked.

There’s only one way it can be done, and they knew it. But it meant they’d have huddle close together, risk physical contact with a stranger – and with their eyes closed!

The two circles talked it over for a moment while I stayed silent. Then they moved in closer to each other, so close that their hands touched in the middle. They closed their eyes, and passed the ball around.

I knew everything I needed to know. “We’re going to have fun this quarter,” I told them.