Odyssey of the Mind: Keeping Brainiacs Engaged

For some kids, school comes easy. But how do you keep bright students engaged? For hundreds of local students, Odyssey of the Mind (an international creative problem-solving organization where team members compete for awards based on solutions to complex problems) is the answer.

Concord High School freshman Samantha Bergum first joined an Odyssey of the Mind team five years ago as a fifth grader at Westwood Elementary. The experience has changed how she looks at the world. Simple objects like duct tape are now ripe with possibilities. “Now the tape is a bracelet, or an earring, or a sound effect, like ‘Oops! I ripped my pants’,” she says, mimicking the sound of the tape.

“I can’t even take Samantha and her friends to a hardware store anymore without them stopping and picking up things all the way down the aisle and pointing out their unique properties,” says Bergum’s mother, Sheila, who coaches her daughter’s team at Concord High and also helps three coaches at El Dorado Middle School.

Odyssey of the Mind challenges students to not only find solutions to complex problems – like to create vehicles without wheels or floatation devices that would take them across a course on a lake – but to do it with ingenuity, risk and style. Over the past 25 years the popularity of the program has grown. There are 168 teams in the San Francisco Bay Region alone. More than 1,000 Odyssey of the Mind members are expected to compete at the regional level on Feb. 26 at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill.

Each team of five to seven members is given a problem to solve together by either building something or giving a dramatic performance. Long-term problems change every year and fall into five general categories: mechanical/vehicle, technical performance, classics, structure and performance. The solution must be completed in eight minutes or less, and some must be done within a seven- to 10-foot working space.  Teams receive points for each requirement met.

Last year, Bergum’s team chose to present a humorous performance where a food item is accused of being unhealthy and must defend itself among its food peers. “We were all food in a sixth-grader’s backpack,” Bergum says. “I was a granola bar, Stan was broccoli, and there was a box of Skittles. (Food fact: Skittles agree with everything.)” Different foods played "the accused," "the accuser," and the “Food Court” was reviewed by a jury of non-team members.

But putting together legal arguments for snack foods wasn’t the hardest part.

“A team of all G.A.T.E. (Gifted and Talented Education) students can be really opinionated and think their way is the best way,” Bergum says. “It’s difficult to come together to make decisions and to work together cohesively to create a solution.” And rules are rigorously followed. One student wanted to draw a picture of his idea during a spontaneous problem discussion, but since no paper or pencil was included on the materials list, he was asked to explain his idea verbally.

Communication skills are just one of the things Odyssey team members learn during the program. Teams must brainstorm solutions together and they must find the solutions without external help.

Bergum’s mother has been an Odyssey of the Mind coach for the past five years and says the hardest part for coaches is to step back and trust the kids to solve the problems. “The biggest challenge of a coach is learning how to guide them in brainstorming discussions so that they learn how to develop their solution on their own.”

Team members aren’t even allowed to discuss their problem at home with parents to ensure the integrity of the program stays intact. Coaches can offer no assistance towards ideas that contribute to the team’s problem; it is a hands-on activity for the team, and a hands-off activity for all others.

“It is difficult to step back and just let them do what they are going to do,” says Pine Hollow Middle School teacher Lanette Stanziano, who is an Odyssey of the Mind coach for her 11-year-old son Evan’s team at El Dorado Middle School and for her 9-year-old daughter Rayna’s team at Westwood Elementary. “Odyssey of the Mind requires them to work together and to listen to each other every day. It’s often a challenge, but they are learning very valuable social skills and they always come out of it the best of friends.”

It’s also given a voice to many students, Sheila Bergum says. “One team member in her first year refused to talk into a microphone and is now very vocal. She even played one of the main characters in last year’s and this year’s performances.”

Co-Regional Director Dick Wildman, who has been a part of Odyssey of the Mind for the past 17 years, says there are no wrong answers in Odyssey. “The program teaches a willingness to try and opens your eyes to the world. The program fosters an ability to solve problems and to see more possibility in life.”

“Obstacles seem smaller,” Bergum says. “And I would never have met my friends without Odyssey of the Mind.”