Be the willow, my friend

Photo by Kasia (mysza83)

“Fear tells us what we have to do…the more scared we are of a work or a calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” – Steven Pressfield

Too often, though, people freeze when faced with fear. But, what makes us fearful in the first place?

Uncertainty makes us uneasy because it reminds us that we do not have full control on the outcomes. When faced with the unfamiliar, we seek comfort in the elusiveness of certainty, only to realize that the unpredictability is too burdensome. So we give up.  

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  It all starts with the understanding that uncertainty is a constant: When faced with unfamiliarity, uncertainty is inevitable. So we have no other option but to embrace it.

The great Bruce Lee had this all figured out; he looked for answers by learning from the best teacher: Nature. In one of his most memorable quotes, he tells us that when we resist the hurdles that life throws at us, we’re like a stiff tree at the mercy of the elements; yet, when we choose to be the bamboo or the willow we become flexible, we become one with the very elements that we felt threatened by.

Adaptability is key and this is no different in education.  As Pedro explained in this recent article, project-based learning is an open-ended and organic process that does not come with textbook answers. And that is the beauty of it. It is relevant because it exposes learners to REAL problems.

When tackling these challenges, we need to be the willows and let uncertainty motivate us to ask the right questions and be open to different solutions.    

There are 2 types of failure

Last Saturday, I planned some awesome learning activities to kick off our first unit about great organizations or so I thought. In order to scaffold learning, I had tried to hash out appealing, hands-on activities that would guide students in the identification of patterns between different types of organizations. After a long mental workout, I had created what I believed was a solid plan. And then…came Corey.

As I bounced my ideas off Corey, it quickly became clear that the plan was not that solid after all; as he pointed out, rather than scaffolding activities to prepare students for the final project -a professional magazine featuring great Peruvian organizations- I should let the project drive the learning. Ultimately, that is the ethos of project-based learning. So on Sunday, I went back to the drawing board and started from scratch.

My relationship with failure has come a long way; as a kid, I was taught to regard it as the antonym of success. Growing up, I slowly came to the realization that one does not necessarily have to preclude the other. That said, one has to make a distinction between 2 types of failure.

Unnecessary failures stem from lack of foresight and carelessness. While they can still help us learn from our mistakes, they eventually jeopardize the outcomes of our hard work. So going back to my planning woes, if I pursued my initial plan, it would have shifted the focus away from the project. At some point, I would have realized it, but it could have been too late. Calling it careless might be too harsh; however, had it not been for Corey’s feedback, I would have unwittingly made a counterintuitive call.  Too often we make silly mistakes that can easily be prevented; we can certainly take away important life lessons from such debacles, but there’s much more to lose from unnecessary failures.

On the other hand, calculated failures can drive learning because the person iterating is fully cognizant of its implications. She is fully aware that the outcomes of those iterations, no matter how unfortunate they might be, will allow her to gain invaluable validated learning.

Lean Startup by Eric Ries exemplifies this paradigm. Out of the many anecdotes in this book, Path’s origin story stands out. When the startup was founded there was a lot of hype surrounding it because of the founders’ successful accomplishments with other established startups. However, soon enough, people started to question its slow start and problems encumbered along the way.   Yet the founders knew better; they diligently looked for answers by testing their product:  

“We humbly test our theories and our approach to see what the market thinks. Listen to feedback honestly. And continue to innovate in the directions we think will create meaning in the world” (David Morin, co-founder of Path)  

It is clear that when people seek to unlock the riddle they are open to failure, because they understand that it will bring them one step closer to the answer.

If there’s one thing I learned during my first two weeks teaching in the IA is that students must learn as quickly as possible how to minimize unnecessary failures and capitalize from purposeful ones. Awareness is key.

Photo by Allegra Camaiora

In the meantime, the students have started unpacking the skills needed to create a professional magazine and planning roles and deadlines. Unlike the initial plans, this second iteration allows students to delve straight into their final project and learn by doing.

In hindsight, I believe that in my initial plan, I was trying to protect students from failing by creating guided, teacher-led activities. But, if we want students to make a distinction between these 2 types of failures, we must first give them exposure. What better way than exposing them through project-based learning?

The lessons learned from taking on a good habit

Over the course of the years, I have learnt to value jogging because this is the time of the day where I can reflect best and come up with ideas. In fact, the idea for this blog post stemmed from this morning’s run. As I jogged and gazed at my childhood’s surroundings, I came to the realization of how this habit has taught me 2 important life-long lessons.  

It’s easier to give up, when you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve tried. 

Jogging has taught me persistence; when I’m jogging, there are moments where I feel doubtful about achieving the goal that I had set initially. I usually get these doubts in the early stages of my run. I start to get discouraged by the amount of work that still lies ahead and my brain starts to mess with me:  “You’ve already had to put forth so much energy in this first stretch, are you sure you’ll be able to make it?” My body parts start to ache and breath slowly starts to run out. 

These are the moments where my body is inclined to give up and stop. After all, I would still feel ok with myself because I would have at least tried. The fact is that neither I am tired, nor does my body ache. This internal battle is a result of the fear of underachievement mixed with an inclination to look for an easy way out because if your brain tells you that you’ve at least tried, you are more likely to give up. 

It is not the first time that I’ve capitulated to such thoughts, but most of the time I don’t. If anything, these doubts have taught me an essential lesson: If I do persevere, I will get a second wind. And this is the part of the run, which is the most fun and rewarding. 

Growth happens in small steps

When I started going jogging, I would often set unrealistic goals and get discouraged straight away when I failed to meet them. Time has taught me to be more patient and aim for the small accomplishments more consistently. In the last weeks, I’ve pushed myself to complete a 4-lap jog along my village’s perimeter. Today, I was tempted to go for 5 because that seems like the logical next step; however, knowing myself, it isn’t. Considering that each lap is a 2km stretch, I’ve decided to go for a more realistic challenge, complete only an extra half a lap today and keep this up next week.  In this way, I will be able to reach my 5 laps benchmark by the following week. Big goals don’t have to be achieved all at once; they’re more likely to happen if broken down into smaller stages.

Jogging has become a positive habit. During the scholastic year, I wake up at least 3 times a week at 4:30 am to go for my jog. However, I’ve always struggled to maintain this habit in summer because I end up sleeping in every day. This year, however, I’ve decided to make a conscientious effort to keep this up.  In my last post, I described jogging as a keystone habit, because it is the foundation block for me to have a healthy routine. In fact, when I jog consistently, I notice that I procrastinate less and I’m more productive. The process of adopting and maintaining positive habits can be long and strenuous; however, there is something to be said about the lessons learned. The iterations, the mind hacks, and the challenges all play an important role in one’s growth.  

Dolce far niente: Is it as sweet as the Italians would have us believe?

Photo by Umberto Salvagnin

Dolce far niente is an Italian saying, which refers to the pleasure one gets from being idle. Dolce far niente is an exhortation to slow down and embrace lethargy, which, as the term suggests, can feel sweet and delightful. In small doses, this can help prevent stress and anxiety; however, when done with no moderation, it can lead to apathy and inertia.

Ever since I was a kid, I viewed summer vacations as a time where one could totally switch off and embrace the dolce far niente philosophy. The pattern has always been the same: the first days of the summer bonanza felt great, but this would soon turn into slow, unending boredom. I’d go to the beach or play computer games, but, inevitably, by the second week of summer, dolce far niente would have lost all its appeal. Yet, I would persevere because, by then, it would have become part of my summer routine.  Growing up, I found ways to fill up my time such as doing summer jobs and reading, but even in my adulthood, I tend to feel rusty going back to teaching after such a long vacation. To make matters worse, during my Maltese vacations, I usually end up gaining more weight due to the bad habits such as binge eating and lack of activity.

This summer, I decided to make a change. In the Innovation Academy, both students and teachers had to take on one good habit for their month vacation. So I have committed myself to jogging and eating healthy. I’m usually able to maintain these good habits during the year, but it has always been quite challenging to keep this up in Malta; therefore, in order to push myself to embrace these habits, I had to resort to some mind hacks. For instance, I bought new running shorts, so that I would feel more compelled to go jogging in the morning. This time around, I also didn’t bring with me any baggy shorts or pants to push myself me to eat healthy.

A week and a half has now passed since the beginning of my summer vacation and so far I’ve been able to follow my plan; however, I’m having a hard time gauging my success with the healthy eating. Initially, I had pledged I’d eat healthy 5 times a week, but this is still too vague. So, I’ve made my goal more specific: I will eat fruit, cereal and vegetables everyday and limit my intake of fried, starchy food to twice a week. By cultivating positive habits and holding myself accountable, I will be able to have a more productive and healthier vacation.

Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg discusses the importance of targeting keystone habits. These are habits that produce a chain reaction that lead to even more positive habits. So, by taking on jogging and healthy eating, I’m hoping to trigger my reading and writing.  

Ghajn Tuffieha Bay, Malta

The answer to my blog post title is plain and simple: Dolce far niente can be indeed as sweet and delightful, but it has happen in moderation. It's always good to switch off for a couple of days, but in the long run one has to stay engaged to prevent apathy and inertia. Taking an evening dip in the Mediterranean, while relishing the orange sunset can be much more rewarding when you know that your day has been purposeful and productive.

Coming Full Circle

We, educators, have all had our fair share of disappointments when planning units that seemed flawless on paper, but failed to deliver when push came to shove. Well, it's certainly not flattering to have to admit failure, but the reflection that ensues can allow for some valuable take-aways. These debacles, no matter how agonizing they might be, can allow for growth in this profession when one takes the time to look for patterns and analyze the root of the causes.

In my experience, one of the most critical issues lies in the process of creating a product. Students seem to struggle to make a genuine reflection and this often hinders the quality of their final product.  My buddy and colleague Hayden has made a relevant remark as to why they often end up not meeting design specifications in his DT class. The MYP Design Cycle, which shares many similar elements with design thinking, looks something like this:

But according to Hayden, students do not really get the cycle part of the concept. In fact, they view it more as a 180 degree line, sequential and rigid:

Hayden does make a good point here. Our students are generally able to regurgitate systemically each and every step of the design cycle, but seem to miss the purpose of the design cycle viewing it more as a contrived sequence of linear stages that are an add-on to their assessments rather than a necessity for the creation of beautiful work. (I'm stealing that directly from Ron Berger)

In essence, design thinking,  should be seen as an organic process, a catalyst for learning. If one looks at the first graphic, they will appreciate that each stage is interconnected by different arrows going in different directions. This implies that the design cycle is indeed a mental construct where stages can be interchangeable and its structure amorphous.  So you might ask, why do students struggle to wrap their heads around this process? The answer is easy: they haven't been exposed to it enough to make it their own .

Learning is complex; there are many cogs that need to fall into place, for it to take place. In one of my earlier posts, I reflected on the weak areas of the Revolutions unit. On paper, this unit is solid; however, that alone does not suffice to produce quality. And this has allowed me to identify an important flaw: The projects that fell flat all shared one commonality- they came to an end without having reached their maturity level. After all, if we really want students to create quality work, shouldn't we be allocating enough time for the refinement of their finished product? This refinement stage is often underestimated in education because there is curriculum that needs to be covered, yet in the real world, it is crucial, because some of the most intense problem-solving takes place at this stage of the creation.

I'm currently reading Lean Startup, which discusses the importance of startups failing with a purpose to gain validated learning and test their hypothesis. This allows them to apply their lessons learned and be faced with two different options: They can either persevere with their product or pivot. Pivoting in this context means making small changes based on the lessons learned about your product to maximize from its potential. And there are many types of pivots too. Entrepreneurs might want to make a customer segment pivot where they acknowledge that their product targets a different kind of customer than the ones that had been originally identified. In contrast, the customer need pivot allows entrepreneurs to use their validated learning to identify a different problem faced by their intended audience and as a result to plan and create a different solution. These are only a few examples that go to show that in the real world, the application of design thinking is fluid and not rigid; at times, one might go straight back to the investigate stage and others to the planning stage. There is no defined rigid formula, because the use of the design cycle is based on necessity.

So this should be no different in school. The skill in problem-solving lies in exposing students to situations where they need to make those types of calls: persevere or pivot. By having the time to refine their product, students are empowered to maximize from design thinking where the stages can be interchangeable depending on the particular nature and unforeseen needs of that project. Too often, we stifle it with touch and go projects that do not allow students to fail, reflect, learn from their failures and refine their work. Here we're doing them a great disservice.

This is yet another argument for the implementation of project-based learning as a vehicle for higher level thinking. Only a change of paradigm and an uprooting of the current structure that equates to 20th century, stand alone subjects can truly bring design thinking to life.