HARFORD FRIENDS SCHOOL’S DI TEAM WINS REGIONAL, HEADS TO STATE TOURNAMENT

Street, MD March 7, 2008 – Their weeks of practice paid off, and the Harford Friends School Destination Imagination team walked away with first prize! The team of six girls, along with HFS parent and coach Virginia Remsberg, wowed the judges at the regional tournament at Bel Air Middle School on March 1^st. Public and private schools from both Harford and Cecil counties competed in the event. The win qualified the HFS team to head to the state tournament at Towson University on Saturday, April 12th.

According to its web site, Destination ImagiNation is a national competition where kids take what they know and what they are good at and learn to apply it to solve challenges, to work together and cooperatively with a team and to push the limits of imagination to best not their competition, but themselves. Destination ImagiNation is a community-based, school-friendly program that builds participants' creativity, problem solving, and teamwork in enjoyable and meaningful ways.

Teams of five to seven members work together to apply creativity, critical thinking and their particular talents to solve a Team Challenge. The HFS team had to choose from five Team Challenges. "They picked the improv challenge, where they're given a task and have 30 minutes to write a skit and make props for the task. Then right before they perform they're told to incorporate a famous person into the skit, and have additional improv elements to add in. There's virtually nothing they can prepare in advance -- it's all thinking on their feet," said team coach Virginia Remsberg.  

Head of School Jonathan Huxtable is enthusiastic about the program. "The DI program and Coach Remsberg's work with our DI team are perfect fits with the academic program at HFS. Both emphasize the importance of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. While knowledge is critical in both fora, the skills required for success in DI, at HFS, and in the world are not confined to a single discipline. Success requires interdisciplinary thinking. Destination Imagination celebrates critical and creative thinking," he said.

When asked about the long hours she puts in as a coach, Remsberg said, "I coach the team because it's a lot of fun, for me as well as the team. There aren't many opportunities for kids to learn to work together outside of an athletic field. Group work in class is a start but it's of short duration. It doesn't focus on developing long-term strategies for fitting into a working team, and yet learning to be creative and flexible in a group of talented people is much closer to what they'll experience in most workplaces."

Parents think DI is a great fit with the values held at HFS.  "The Quaker Principles of community and equality are especially highlighted through the work of being on a DI team.  On a DI team kids learn that everyone's ideas and opinions are valuable.  On a DI team kids learn through experience how to maneuver the give and take of working within a community and to celebrate each other's accomplishments," said Sarah Buchanan-Wollaston, HFS DI parent.

Pictured from left to right: "HFSters" Jordan Hartman, Elsie Buchanan-Wollaston, Emma Remsberg, Myleigh Connery, Zoe Russo, Coach Virginia Remsberg, and Rebecca Cerasoli.