There, there, there. It's okay, Daddy's here, Daddy's got you. I
promise I will never let anything happen to you... Nemo."
I've always felt when Marlin says this with Nemo cradled in his
fin after the barracuda has devastated his anemone, killed off his eggs and
taken off with Coral, that Pixar are giving us parents a bit of a life lesson:
sometimes you just gotta let go and see where the learning and life experience
will take them (even if it means they go out there into the dropoff and touch a
butt!).
And while this can be nerve wracking and uncomfortable, holding
them back and protecting them from failure and pain and risk and hurt isn't
going to help either!
There is a similar lesson in this for us as
educators....protection and control don't lead to ingenuity, they lead to
disengagement.
Embracing, envisioning, reaching out and taking risks - albeit
scary - can lead to some amazing results!
When I came across this image using a Samuel Beckett quote - it
resonated with me (as much of Beckett's writing has). Just like Dory says:
keep swimming :).
The only way to learn how to swim with sharks, is to swim
with them....no point in being a bystander.
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour." (Truman Capote)
Here's to more flavoursome learning experiences!
I took a Food Tech class as a extra once. Fortunately the kitchen assistance ran the class as I had no idea what I was doing. I only had to stand at the side of the room to tick DETs teacher supervision check-box and watch. The Yr 10 students were making chocolate chip cookies. The recipe was clearly spelled out step-by-step on the board. You couldn't go wrong if you simply did exactly as you were told, which most kids did. All of the students were rewarded with delicious, perfectly uniform biscuits - except for two pairs. One pair confused the instruction 1 cup of sugar plus 1/2 teaspoon of salt and put in 1 cup of salt plus 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. I know I shouldn't have, but I did enjoy the look on their faces as they did their best to eat their finished biscuits! The other pair decided that instead of making 12 cookies out of their mixture, they would just make one giant cookie. In the oven it went for the prescribed time. When they attempted to lift their cookie, the centre dropped out, making a messy pile of uncooked cookie mix on the baking tray. They did look pleased with the large cookie doughnut ring they had made and happily munched away at it. They devoured the uncooked mix on the tray too.
ReplyDeleteThis was many years ago, but it imprinted upon me an important principle about learning. Sticking with the tried and true recipe might achieve the goal of the moment, but truly "flavoursome learning experiences" only happen when you take the risk of stepping outside the recipe!
Another great anecdote Alan and (at the risk of pushing the metaphor even further) - we need to move beyond the cookie cutter conformity, compliance approach to education to true engagement, inspiration and passion where mistakes (too much salt, soggy middles) are just as valid to student learning as the successes.
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