CORE TEAM CURRICULUM — 12 LESSONS

Overview

Twelve lessons. Four phases. Every team activity — robotics, theater, soccer, service, classroom projects — follows the same arc: you form, you plan, you do the work, you end. These lessons give you tools for each phase.

Use them in sequence for a new team. Pull individual lessons when the moment calls for it. Each takes 20–60 minutes and works with any age group.

The Universal Pattern

Every team activity follows the same rhythm, regardless of what the activity is. This is the pattern the 12 lessons are built on:

Formation — The season starts. Who are we? Why are we here? How will we treat each other? (Lessons 1–4)

Planning & Preparation — Dreams meet reality. Resources are finite. Focus matters. (Lessons 5–6)

The Work — Things go wrong. People need feedback. Someone doesn't know something. Roles blur. Ideas conflict. (Lessons 7–11)

Completion — It ends. How you finish shapes what people carry forward. (Lesson 12)

Phase A: Formation

Before the work begins — establishing why we're here and how we'll work together.

Lesson 1: Why Do We Play?

Framing Project Purpose Through the Wisdom of Play

Watch young animals play. They chase, wrestle, and explore — not because anyone told them to, but because play is how mammals develop. Lion cubs playing at hunting aren't just having fun. They're becoming lions.

The same is true for your team. The explicit goal (win the competition, finish the project) is real. But the deeper purpose is who you're becoming through the work. This lesson surfaces both levels — and when teams hold both, setbacks become learning opportunities instead of failures.

The project is the playground. Who you become is the point.

Duration: 45–60 min (15-min express available) · Key question: What are we really here for?

Lesson 2: Choosing Our Name

Designing a Decision Process That Matches Our Purpose

Every team faces a first collective decision — often choosing a name. The name matters less than how you decide. Simple majority voting creates winners and losers. For identity-forming decisions, that can fracture the group before it begins.

This lesson introduces elimination rounds, ranked choice, and consent-based decision-making. The key insight: "No one hates it" often matters more than "everyone's favorite."

How you decide is as important as what you decide.

Duration: 30–45 min (15-min express available) · Key question: How do we decide together?

Lesson 3: How We Agree to Be Together

Making the Invisible Rules Visible

Every group develops unspoken rules about time, attention, communication, conflict, and work. Problems start when people violate norms they didn't know existed. This lesson surfaces those invisible expectations and turns them into explicit agreements the team creates together.

The critical addition: every norm needs an answer to "What do we do when this is broken?" Norms without accountability aren't norms — they're wishes.

Implicit norms cause conflict when violated unknowingly. Explicit norms can be discussed, taught, and evolved.

Duration: 40–50 min (15-min express available) · Key question: What do we expect from each other?

Lesson 4: The Story We Tell Ourselves

Understanding the Gap Between What We See and What We Assume

Someone shows up late. Someone doesn't contribute. Someone rolls their eyes during your presentation. In milliseconds, you've written a story about why — and the story is almost always uglier than the truth.

This lesson uses roleplay where behavior is easily misread. It introduces the Ladder of Inference — how we leap from observable behavior to attributed motivation in seconds — and gives teams a tool for checking their stories before acting on them.

The story we tell ourselves is almost always uglier than the truth.

Duration: 35–45 min (15-min express available) · Key question: What am I assuming about others?

Phase B: Planning & Work Prep

Dreams meet reality — resources are finite, focus matters.

Lesson 5: When Dreams Meet Gravity

Planning Under Real Constraints

Your team has big ideas and limited resources — time, money, skill, materials. Something has to give. The question is what. This lesson teaches teams to protect core purpose while adapting strategy, to distinguish between the non-negotiable and the nice-to-have, and to make trade-offs consciously rather than by default.

Plans that survive contact with reality aren't the ones that never change — they're the ones that know what can't change.

Duration: 40–50 min (15-min express available) · Key question: How do we adapt without abandoning purpose?

Lesson 6: One Marshmallow or Two?

Focus, Delayed Gratification, and Choosing What Matters

The famous marshmallow test wasn't really about willpower. It was about strategy — kids who waited used specific techniques to manage the tension between now and later. This lesson applies that insight to team work: when the fun thing and the important thing compete, how do you choose?

Teams learn to identify "one-marshmallow" distractions and "two-marshmallow" investments, and build shared language for calling each other back to focus.

What do we want MORE?

Duration: 20–30 min · Key question: What do we want more than what we want right now?

Phase C: The Work

Things go wrong. People need feedback. Someone doesn't know something. Roles blur. Ideas conflict.

Lesson 7: The Gift No One Wants to Give

Honest Feedback

Everyone agrees feedback is important. Almost no one wants to give it or receive it. This lesson normalizes discomfort, teaches specific structures for giving feedback that's honest AND respectful, and helps teams build a culture where feedback is expected rather than feared.

The core reframe: feedback isn't criticism. It's information someone needs that they can't get any other way. That makes it a gift — even when it's uncomfortable to deliver.

Honest feedback is a gift. Most people just don't know how to wrap it.

Duration: 35–45 min · Key question: How do we tell each other the truth without doing damage?

Lesson 8: What Now?

Failure Processing and After-Action Reviews

Something went wrong. The match is lost, the prototype broke, the presentation bombed. Now what? This lesson teaches After-Action Reviews — structured, blame-free processing that turns setbacks into information. Three questions: What happened? Why? What do we do differently?

The hardest part isn't the structure. It's creating safety for honest answers. This lesson addresses both.

Failure isn't the opposite of success. It's information.

Duration: 30–40 min · Key question: How do we learn from this instead of being crushed by it?

Lesson 9: I Don't Know

Asking for Help

Three of the hardest words for any person to say — especially in a culture that rewards looking competent. This lesson reframes asking for help as a sign of strength and intellectual honesty rather than weakness. It addresses what keeps people silent (fear, pride, not wanting to slow the group down) and builds team practices that make asking for help normal.

The courage to say "I don't know" is the beginning of actually learning.

Duration: 30–40 min · Key question: What makes it hard to ask for help, and how do we make it easier?

Lesson 10: Who Does What?

Roles, Responsibility, and Contribution

"We'll all just pitch in" is how most teams start. It's also how resentment builds. This lesson addresses role clarity, visible accountability, and the difference between fair and equal. Teams learn to distribute work based on strengths, make contributions visible, and have the hard conversation when someone isn't carrying their weight.

Fair doesn't mean equal. It means everyone contributes what they can, and everyone can see it.

Duration: 35–45 min · Key question: How do we divide the work so everyone's contribution is visible and valued?

Lesson 11: Fighting About Ideas

Healthy Conflict

Most teams either avoid conflict entirely (and make worse decisions) or let it become personal (and damage relationships). This lesson teaches the middle path: how to disagree about ideas without making it about people. Teams practice separating positions from interests, challenging ideas without attacking the person behind them, and recognizing when healthy debate has crossed into something else.

The best teams don't avoid conflict. They get good at it.

Duration: 40–50 min · Key question: How do we disagree without damaging relationships?

Phase D: Completion

It ends. How you finish shapes what people carry forward.

Lesson 12: How We End

Reflection, Extraction, and Transition

Nobody teaches this. Seasons end. Projects finish. Teams dissolve. And usually people just... stop. This lesson teaches the skill of ending well: reflecting on what happened, extracting what was learned, honoring what each person contributed, and consciously transitioning to what's next.

It circles back to Lesson 1 — did we become what we hoped? — and gives the experience a meaningful close instead of just a stop.

How you end shapes what you carry forward.

Duration: 40–50 min · Key question: What did we learn, and who did we become?

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