The Sponges Returned To Class, With A Little Twist…

‘How many times do you reach out to someone before they actually hear you for the first time.”

That was the question my longtime colleague Chris LaPlaca posed to our students in our two classes last week, where we were lucky enough to have him come in and speak for a while. The question was posed not to be annoying or provacative, but to make everyone think about how they show up to others, how they cut through the clutter, and how knowledge and curiosity can be absrobed just enough to stick.

Like a sponge.

This semester, with a little trepidation becuase sometimes these things are seen as a bit hoakey, we brought back the sponge challange as a tangible way to be reminded about curious learning and absorbing all the little things that we need to do to be successful. The challenge of cutting through distractions, bombardment of messages, visual stimuli, social media and everything else can be very daunting, and no one has been given more than 24 hours in a day to make it all fit together.

So back I went to Dollar Tree and bought 41 sponges and got the strange look frm the cahsier (who reminded me that Costco sells them cheaper in bulk; good to know if I do this again) ..the cleaning ones you can use for any household task, and then went to the Columbia bookstore to get some stickers to put on these Columbia blue sponges (Dollar Tree actually sells sponges in sets of five that luckily are Columbia blue).

The task is simple. Keep your sponge in your backpack and use it as a tool…a simple one…to tell us each week what you absorbed…in class, on social media, in the community, with your friends etc. etc. It was not a tried and true goals oriented assignment (that has thrown some of the more academically hardened students for a loop as they try and use the creative sign of their brain a bit more for storytelling), it is a point of stimulus to remind you to think, and to learn.

More importantly as you absorb the trivia, the tasks, the encounters of the week, we remind the students that sponges also give back, so squeeze out that knowledge from time to time and share it with others. Most classes we start by going around the room and randomly asking…not everyone likes or has to participate in this…what your sponge absorbed this week. We have sponges make it to th San Gennaro Feast, running in Central Park, to WNBA games, and pizzerias, to the library, even some brushes with celebrity over the past few years. Some have gotten lost or thrown into the wash, and have lived to come out the other side. Some have been sliced and diced and shared with others. Some have gone on trips to places far and away. Some probably never make it that far, but that’s ok too.

One other thing those blue rectangles do…they find ways to reshape themselves as well. 

“Always be a sponge, you can never absorb too much information as you shape your career.” LaPlaca volunteered again this year.

A little pull here, a little touch there, a little kneading here, and what you started with may not be what you end up with, and that adjustment is also valuable on the journey.

The sponges, most of all, are meant to remind us to keep learning, reinventing, looking at things differently, and making light of a world, and a business, which we tend to take way too seriously all the time.

Are they a little silly or simplistic? Maybe. But for those who stop learning and absorbing, you run the risk of what happens when we don’t act like sponges…we dry out of creativity, adaptability, and even usefulness. Then we get replaced.

Maybe it’s not so silly after all. Keep absorbing, even when you don’t want to. You never know the value of what you soak up, and then share until you try.

If nothing else, they will be a good touchpoint…a conversation piece that can start a conversation, just as Chris pointed out. Value in being heard.