Week 11 Storytelling: Solutions

Solutions

It was a warm Tuesday evening. Rose and Marissa had their weekly psychology class at 5. They were both dreading going to class because they have grown bored of the class set-up. Every week, they go to class, listen to the professor lecture, take a quiz, and then listen to more lecture. But this particular Tuesday, Rose remembered that they were doing something different in class. She didn't know what, but she remembered that her teacher said they would be sitting on the floor. This made the two girls a little less apprehensive about attending class. 

When they got to class, the first thing they did was take their weekly quiz. Usually, the quiz was given in the middle of the three hour lecture, so they were confused. What would they be doing tonight that changed up the weekly routine? 

As they were taking their quizzes, the professor was walking around and putting uncooked spaghetti and yarn on random tables throughout the classroom. The professor also put some tape and a marshmallow on the tables. A marshmallow?! What was going to happen in class today?

After the quiz was over, the professor explained that they would be doing a marshmallow challenge to build group unity. He broke the classroom into eight groups. Unfortunately, Rose and Marissa were in different groups. Once everyone was in their assigned group, the professor explained the assignment. Each group had in front of them, 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of yarn, one yard of tape, and a marshmallow. Their task was to make the tallest free-standing structure that could hold the weight of the marshmallow at the top. They only had 18 minutes to do so. 

(Marshmallow challenge. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Once the timer started, Rose's group kept complaining about how they couldn't make anything with the flimsy sticks of spaghetti. They spent a good eight minutes complaining about the problem. By the halftime mark, they had barely any ideas about how to make a solid structure. 

Marissa's group, on the other hand, immediately started to figure out solutions on how to get the marshmallow to stay at the top. They prototyped different ways that they could build a strong enough structure to hold the marshmallow. Within the first ten minutes, Marissa's group had two very strong structures to choose from. 

When the 2 minute warning went off, Rose and her group fell into a panic. They started to tape random pieces of spaghetti and yarn together in hopes of a strong structure. About 30 seconds before time was up, their wimpy structure collapsed and the marshmallow hit the floor. 

At the 2 minute warning, Marissa and her group had a very strong structure. It looked like it was over 2 feet tall and the marshmallow was sitting perfectly at the top. They had won the challenge. 

After cleaning up, the professor explained to the class that this task was assigned to teach the students that they shouldn't always focus on the problems at hand. Instead, they should focus on the solutions they can come up with to solve the problem.

(Motivational poster made by me) 

Author's Note. I go the inspiration for this story from a few sources. I wanted to write a story that had a moral because this week in class, I read a collection of fables in Indian Fables and Folklore. I decided to find a good moral from The Mahabharata. The lesson I took away from the Mahabharata was to focus on the solution, instead of the problem. In the Mahabharata, when Lord Krishna went to the Kauravas to tell them that the Pandavas wanted to end the dispute, the Kauravas basically laughed in his face. Instead of focusing on fixing the issue, the Kauravas focused on expanding their fight with the Pandavas. Because they couldn't see a solution, the 100 Kauravas were defeated by 5 Pandavas. I got the idea for my story from my psychology class. We did the marshmallow challenge this past week and I realized that this lesson, "focus on the solution, not the problem," could apply here too. 

Bibliography. Indian Fables and Folklore, Shovona Devi. (1919)