How to learn From mistakes Diana Laufenberg

I have been teaching for a long time and

in doing so have acquired a body of

knowledge about kids and learning that I

really wish more people would understand

about the potential of students in 1931

my grandmother bottom left for you guys

over here graduated from the eighth

grade she went to school to get the

information because that’s where the

information lived it was in the books it

was inside the teacher’s head and she

needed to go there to get the

information because that’s how you

learned fast forwarded generation this

is the one-room schoolhouse Oak Grove my

father went to a one-room schoolhouse

and he again had to travel to the school

to get the information from the teacher

stored in the only portable memory he

has which is inside his own head and

take it with him because that is how

information was being transported from

teacher to student and then used in the

world when I was a kid we had a set of

encyclopedias at my house it was

purchased the year I was born and it was

extraordinary because I did not have to

wait to go to the library to get to the

information the information was inside

my house and it was awesome this was

different than either generation had

experienced before

and it changed the way I interacted with

information even at just a small level

but the information was closer to me I

could get access to it in the time that

passes between when I was a kid in high

school and when I started teaching we

really see the advent of the internet

right about the time that the internet

gets going as an educational tool I take

off from Wisconsin and move to Kansas

small town Kansas where I had an

opportunity to teach in a lovely small

town rural Kansas School District where

I was teaching my favorite subject

American government my first year super

gung-ho going to teach American

government love the political system

kids in the 12th grade not exactly all

that enthusiastic about the American

government system you’re too learned a

few things had to change my tactic and I

put in front of them an authentic

experience that allowed them to learn

for themselves

I didn’t tell them what to do or how to

do it I posed a problem in front of them

which

was to put on an election form for their

own community they produced fliers they

called offices they check schedules they

were meeting with secretaries they

produced an election form booklet for

the entire town to learn more about

their candidates they invited everyone

into the school for an evening of

conversation about government and

politics and you know whether or not the

streets were done well and really had

this robust experiential learning the

older teachers more experienced looked

at me and went oh there she is that’s so

cute she’s trying to get that done she

doesn’t know what she’s in for but I

knew that the kids would show up and I

and I believed it and I told them every

week um what I expected out of them and

that night all 90 kids dressed

appropriately doing their job owning it

I had to just sit and watch it was

theirs

it was experiential it was authentic it

meant something to them and they will

step up from Kansas I moved on to lovely

Arizona where I taught in Flagstaff for

a number of years this time with middle

school students luckily I didn’t have to

teach them American government could

teach the more exciting topic of

geography and again thrilled to learn

but what was interesting about this

position I found myself in in Arizona

was I had this really extraordinarily

eclectic group of kids to work with in a

truly public school and we got to have

these moments where we would get these

opportunities and one opportunity was we

got to go and meet Paul Rusesabagina

which is the gentleman that the movie

Hotel Rwanda is based after and he was

going to speak at the high school next

door to us we could walk there we didn’t

even have to pay for the buses there was

no expense cost perfect field trip the

problem then becomes how do you take

seventh and eighth graders to a talk

about genocide and deal with the subject

in a way that is responsible and

respectful and they know what to do with

it and so we chose to look at Paul

Rusesabagina as an example of a

gentleman who singularly used his life

to do something positive I then

challenged the kids to identify someone

in their own life or in their own story

or in their own world that they could

identify that had done a similar thing I

asked them to produce a little movie

about it first time we’ve done this

nobody really knew how to make these

little movies on the computer but they

were into it and I

to put their own voice over it it was

the most awesome moment of Revelation

that when you ask kids to use their own

voice and ask them to speak for

themselves what they’re willing to share

the last question of the assignment is

how do you plan to use your life to

positively impact other people the

things that kids will say when you ask

them and take the time to listen is

extraordinary

fast-forward to Pennsylvania where I

find myself today I teach at the science

Leadership Academy which is a

partnership school between the Franklin

Institute and the School District of

Philadelphia we are a nine through

twelve public school but we do school

quite differently I moved there

primarily to be part of a learning

environment that validated the way that

I knew that kids learn and that really

wanted to investigate what was possible

when you were willing to kind of let go

of some of the paradigms of the past of

information scarcity when my grandmother

was in school and when my father was in

school and even when I was in school

into a moment where we have information

surplus and so what do you do when the

information is all around you why do you

have kids come to school if they no

longer have to come there to get the

information in Pennsylvania we have in

Philadelphia we have a one-to-one laptop

program so the kids are bringing in

laptops with them every day taking them

home getting access to information and

here’s the thing that you need to get

comfortable with when you’ve given the

tool to acquire information to students

is that you have to be comfortable with

this idea of allowing kids to fail as

part of the learning process we deal

right now in the educational landscape

with an it just an infatuation with the

culture of one right answer that can be

properly bubbled on the average

multiple-choice test and I am here to

share with you it is not learning that

is the absolute wrong thing to ask to

tell kids to never be wrong to ask them

to always have the right answer doesn’t

allow them to learn so we did this

project and this is one of the artifacts

of the project I almost never show them

off because of the issue of the idea of

failure my students produce these

infographics as a result of a unit that

we

decided to do at the end of the year

responding to the oil spill I asked them

to take the examples that we were seeing

of the infographics that existed you

know in a lot of mass media and take a

look at what were the interesting

components of it and produce one for

themselves of a different man-made

disaster from American history and they

had certain criteria to do it they were

a little uncomfortable with it because

we never done this before and they

didn’t know exactly how to do it they

can talk they are very smooth and they

can write very very well but asking them

to communicate ideas in a different way

was a little uncomfortable for them but

I gave them the room to just do the

thing go create go figure it out let’s

let’s see what we can do and the student

that persistently turns out the best

visual product did not disappoint this

was done in like two or three days and

this is the work of the student that

consistently did it when I sat the

students down I said who’s got the best

one and they immediately went there it

is

didn’t read anything there it is

and I said well what makes it great in

there like oh the design is good and

he’s using good color and they’re

submitting it and they went through all

of we processed out loud and I said go

read it and they’re like Oh Alan that

one wasn’t so awesome and then we went

to another one he didn’t have good

visuals but had great information and

spent an hour talking about the learning

process because it wasn’t about whether

or not it was perfect or whether or not

it was what I could create it asked them

to create for themselves and it allowed

them to fail process learn from and when

we do another round of this in my class

this year they will do better this time

because learning has to include amount

and amount of failure because failure is

instructional in the process there are a

million pictures that I could click

through here and had to choose carefully

this is one of my favourites of students

learning of what learning can look like

in a landscape where we let go of the

idea that kids have to come to school to

get the information but instead ask them

what they can do with it ask some really

interesting questions they will not

disappoint ask them to go to places to

see things for themselves to actually

experience the learning to play to

inquire this is one of my favorite

photos because this was taken on Tuesday

when I asked the students to go to the

polls this is Robbie and this was his

first day of voting and he wanted to

share that with everybody and do that

but this is learning too because we

asked them to go out into real spaces

the main point is that if we continue to

look at education as if it’s about

coming to school to get the information

and not about experiential learning

empowering student voice and embracing

failure we’re missing the mark and

everything that everybody is talking

about today isn’t possible if we keep

having an educational system that does

not value these qualities because we

won’t get there with a standardized test

and we won’t get there with a culture of

one right answer we know how to do this

better and it’s time to do better