The ambiguity of the human condition

 The first thing Carson Joseph Mcneill and I, Jack Oliver Johnston, noticed when closely examing the Human Puzzle Spring at Sage was the atmosphere of confusion among students as they struggled to complete their tasks. Of course, when interviewing the teacher leading the activity, Mr. Derek Shapiro,  he confidently asserted "this was the plan." The students are playing a game that is like an alternate version of the game "telephone".They are separated into groups of 4; the first group reads a certain set of instructions regarding a layout with legos. Then, they communicate the instructions to the second group who communicates with the third group, who finally gives the instructions to the fourth group that builds the structure out of legos. I spoke with each group who gave me similar responses. Each student said something along the lines of "It is not going well." Sitting with students of the fourth group, I noticed the lack of instruction they received. Fellow students Devon and Liam sat idly by while fiddling with small contraptions they had constructed out of their mismatched legos. Although this game may have seemed to be going poorly for some groups, surprisingly the group with Devon was relatively accurate with a few mistakes. On the other hand, some of the teams were incredibly off target. 

This activity really did its job in demonstrating the errors that can be resulted from minor miscommunications. Although the first person may have had an accurate view of what they were trying to build, as the message was being passed on from person to person it became progressively more inaccurate, getting to the point where the final person barely knows what they are talking about. After this activity, we spoke to Mr. Shapiro once again. Collectively we theorized better ways in which to do this assignment, where we would use a more organized system of construction, allowing it to be more accurate and consistent. This demonstrates another one of the boons of this class as it creates discussion on how to do things better, and helps people imagine the complexity of the human body.