colour, identity, confusion and skittles

...turns out skittles are going through a ‘revels’ phase and have decided to try and mask the flavours by switching flavours with colours. sounds like a bit of a quirky idea, but the skittles people just don’t get the fact that you don’t eat skittles one at a time and enjoy each flavour individually, you just grab a few and eat them all at once, making this excerise kinda pointless….although i was disappointed to keep getting what i thought were yummy green ones and getting a mouthful of purple - eugh.

Before you ask what does this have to do with schoolswork…let me tell you. If you’re ever stuck for a conversation starter in the playground, food is a safe option…it gets everyone talking, and invites even the quietest kid into the conversation. So, make it more specifically about sweets and everyone is sure to have an opinion, especially chuck in the question about the best revels flavour (which, by the way, I’m still outraged that they got rid of coffee and swapped it with a ridiculously-poor strawberry excuse for a flavour), and, you’re well on your way to empowering young people to talk about what they are most passionate about.

So, back to the skittles. I may be getting a bit carried away here, but i actually like this idea of colour and confusion and think it relates to our work in a couple of ways. You could use the confused skittles thing to trigger a conversation about identity…what makes you you? do you wear a mask to cover up what’s really going on inside? what about when people think they have you all figured out and then you go and surprise them and show them something new that is going with you? how does it feel to blow away people’s stereotypes and show them that you don’t fit into the neat little box they had you in?

I think the skittles really have gone to my head now…I ended up visiting the skittles website to get a picture to put on this post and spent 10 minutes looking at all the little colour videos and pictures that teenagers (I assume) have uploaded. I actually really like this idea - how can you eradicate the grey and bring a bit of colour into life? ...although I dread to think how long it took to knit a guy up in orange, cool though. To my mind springs this assembly topic that one of our team was given a while back - ‘colours’ - I’ve no idea what they actually did with the theme in the end but just thinking about this tonight, it strikes me that when we’re in school and meeting young people, part of what we’re about is helping them explore the hundreds of questions they have across the whole spectrum of life, about helping them go deeper, seeing life more vibrantly and living it to the full.

“fight the grey” - skittles tells us, well, maybe there’s a message in there. or, maybe as i say, the skittles have gone to my head.

whichever way, this has been a great advert for skittles. d’oh.

Tags: identity, colour, conversations,

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