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.
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| 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?
