Sophia Rowen- blog #2 "yes, and" technique in Mystery Tubes

There are many serendipitous discoveries while running a program cart for Mystery Tubes. A guest asked if everything inside the tube was made with string and if not, then how were they to make a model that works the same way with different materials. He believed that there was a loop contraption inside the tube and that was how the two strings were connected. He decided to then make a loop made out of the string on the table. His sketch (Figure 1) shows the loop contraption. 

You get a lot of surprising responses and ideas with Mystery Tubes because we ask guests the question “what do you think is going on inside?” While running the program cart I had two kids, one boy and one girl, walk up to the cart and instantly start playing with the Mystery Tubes. They told me they were twins and I was curious to whether they would have the same or different ideas for the tubes. It turned out that they had completely opposite ideas at first, and their models revealed this. The boy continued to improve his design by making two more models. We don’t tell them the answer, we also don’t know the real answer ourselves. In a way, peoples’ responses don’t directly have anything to do with science however, the concept of not knowing how something works is what scientists experience all the time. Some kids like this idea because there is little pressure on them to find an answer and solve the problem. I reassured them that there are many ways that the tubes could be constructed and that the model they built was just one way they could have solved it. 

            Guests responses and ideas help facilitate the learning process. For example, in Mystery Tubes, guests would have some crazy ideas about what they think is going on inside the tube and when they went to make a model they were stumped. It was difficult for guests to translate their crazy ideas into a working model. This allowed them to modify their designs and improve them to make more sense. Mystery Tubes is all about using the “yes, and” technique. The main role of the educator (us) in this program is not to negate or affirm the guest’s ideas. This kind of teaching is consistent with the “yes, and” technique we learned in improv. Because we aren’t supposed to negate an idea offered by a guest, we are prompted to accept the guests offer and build upon it. This kind of learning is helpful in discovering the different ways in which you can learn from Mystery Tubes. 

Figure 1. A guests' sketch of Mystery Tubes solution