PRINCETON: PDS teams compete in Destination ImagiNation

By Stephanie Vaccaro, Staff Writer
   Sometimes, winning isn’t everything.
   Two teams of Princeton Day School sixth graders learned this when they traveled to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in late May to compete in the 2011 Destination ImagiNation Global Competition.
   And though they did not walk away with top-rankings among the 1,000 DI teams that participated from around the world, they walked away with a lot.
   ”It was an amazing experience for these 14 sixth graders, who got off the bus at PDS at 7 on Sunday night, absolutely exhausted but also completely exhilarated from the whole experience,” said middle school teacher Arlene Cohen.
   The students took part in competitions that tested their creativity, teamwork and problem-solving capabilities.
   Ms. Cohen said one of the student teams placed in the middle of the pack and the other a bit lower.
   ”It is all so much more than the eight minutes performance and the five-minute instant challenge. As one of mine actually said to her teammate when she was getting especially nervous right before performing, ‘It is not like if we win we will go to universals and compete against aliens!’ So true.”
   ”From my perspective, both teams got to see some truly amazing performances of creativity and teamwork, and it just gets their minds so open to how far students can go in the minds when coming up to a solution to a challenge,” said Ms. Cohen.
   ”It is fun, it is exciting, it is amazing to work within certain parameters, yes, but to know that it is all up to them — adults aren’t allowed to get involved in their solutions,” said Ms. Cohen.
   It’s all about creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork, said Ms. Cohen, who has participated with DI for 20 years.
   ”I see these attributes time and again in my daily teaching, when I see a DI kid approach a challenge — whether it be a tough math problem, a lost important paper or a difficult moment in friendship — in a unique way and with a can-do spirit.”
   Maybe one of the most useful things that DI participants take with them is a new way of seeing the world.
   ”On the last night, there is a big party and as we were leaving, I saw one of my team members had something odd in his hand,” said Ms. Cohen. “It was a broken light-up stick used by someone in the dark arena during the closing ceremonies. I motioned him towards a garbage can, and he said instead he wanted to keep it, play around with it, see what he could make with it. The great dreamers and thinkers of the world — sometimes they begin as a 12-year-old with a broken light-up stick.”