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(12/2002) - If you’re looking to challenge those students who are inquisitive, who are always looking for new activities, who enjoy building things, who have a dramatic flair, a creative bent for writing or who just like to tinker, then Odyssey of the Mind should be their next educational adventure. Perhaps you have a student with one or all of these assets but who just can’t seem to get going. Odyssey of the Mind can help even a child like this become a self-starter and a creative problem solver. Through Odyssey, students have a lot of fun and discover skills and talents they never knew they had. And since the Odyssey process takes place in an atmosphere of acceptance and is driven by the students’ own creative energies and thirsts for learning, even those who are the shyest will find their voices and participate.

I was first introduced to Odyssey of the Mind 14 years ago, when my daughter, then in second grade, joined a team. The next year her coach was relocating and my daughter begged me to step in as coach. So it was then that my own odyssey began and I have never looked back. I spent the next 10 years coaching my daughter’s teams while my husband served as an Odyssey of the Mind judge. Together, we watched children blossom as they experience the development of individual creative abilities and group team skills that would help them take on new challenges every year. One of my fondest memories is of seeing my daughter’s team huddled together during the award ceremony at the close of many a tournament pondering about the next year’s problem challenges!

Since, in Odyssey of the Mind, students work as a team to solve a specific problem creatively over a period of weeks or months, they develop significant “people” skills. They learn how to work with others, to appreciate the ideas of others and to understand that the best solution is often a combination of several different ideas. They learn how to brainstorm and how to think divergently and, as importantly, they learn to appreciate that there are many different approaches to gaining a successful solution. And as they learn, students develop tremendous amounts of self-confidence for themselves and curiosity for the world beyond.

Odyssey problems often require in-depth exploration of a particular subject, so as such, participants hone research capabilities as they expand their knowledge base. Over the years, our Odyssey teams built small vehicles that used different power sources, learned about the vaudeville era, constructed devices to propel tennis balls at a target, explored ancient cultures and the concepts of archaeology, studied about and created classical poetry and Impressionist art, and drew parallels between William Shakespeare’s writings and a 20^th century event. Given the responsibility to choose whatever problems they wished to explore, the students had plenty of self-motivation to work towards, and plenty of excitement when they accomplished, their goals.

The skills that Odyssey of the Mind helped my daughter’s team members develop are truly “life skills”. These are the kind of skills that help you when you hit the proverbial “brick wall”. Because Odyssey problems are posed as challenges to be overcome under time constraints, Odyssey teams are faced with brick walls often. Rather than letting that brick wall stop them, team members have to figure out constantly how to go around, over, under or through the bricks. They even have to figure out, in some cases, how to tear the wall down! Along the way, students are exposed to a lot of practical skills that are gleaned from the building of props and scenery, the making of costumes, and the writing of scripts. They even pick up a thing or two about time management, planning and budgeting.

As a parent, I feel that Odyssey of the Mind has been one of the greatest opportunities I provided for my child. That second grader who started us on this journey is now a senior in college. She has, many times, expressed to us how valuable her Odyssey experiences have been to her in all facets of college life. Her Odyssey experiences have helped her with her course work, with her graphic design projects and with the daily challenges of living on her own. Thanks to Odyssey, she’s not afraid to assemble furniture for a new apartment or tackle the plumbing under the kitchen sink! Moreover, the value of Odyssey of the Mind is widely recognized and appreciated by those who have participated. Like many former Odyssey participants, my daughter gives back to the program by volunteering as a judge at our regional & state tournaments and as an official at World Finals competition.

The years I spent coaching my daughter’s Odyssey of the Mind teams have been unquestionably the most rewarding and exciting experiences I have had with students. There is nothing else quite like Odyssey of the Mind. It is infectious! So infectious, in fact, that my own journey has taken me from my role as a coach, to my volunteering as an official, to my becoming a Regional Director and, now, to my position as the Director of the Odyssey of the Mind program in Pennsylvania. I am not unlike many others who continue to volunteer long after their own children have graduated and moved on: we hold on to the opportunity to experience the absolute thrill of watching individuals develop the courage and confidence to tackle the most difficult of problems and to learn to believe in themselves and their abilities.