EdTech Loop Best Of! Failing to Fail

It’s another Time Travel episode of the EdTechLoop Podcast as we dive back in the Feed with Marty McFly’s DeLorean to Episode 36 Failing to Fail with Danelle Brostrom where we stop trying to be perfect, but endeavour to be useful. And if you find the pod useful, take a moment and subscribe and give us a rating on your app of choice and as always thanks for listening and inspiring! 

 

Danelle 0:26

We’re recording Right?

 

Danelle 0:32

think the word that I want to say.

 

Larry 0:36

I'm so confident I will not fail that I’m doing everything in sharpie.

 

Larry 0:51

It’s Episode 36 of the TCAPSLoop weekly podcast. My name is Larry Burden, and failing to be nominated for the Best ed tech podcast Grammy again this year. It's

 

Danelle 1:04

Danielle Brostrom 

 

Larry 1:05

see I like that, like that. You held it in.

 

Larry 1:08

I'm happy to be back in our usual day. 

 

Danelle

I know it's Tuesday

 

Larry

Tuesday is podcast day. 

 

Danelle

All right. Nice. 

 

Larry

Feeling into it, very into today. So um, how's it going? 

 

Danelle

It's going great. 

 

Larry

Anything new, anything exciting happening in your life? anything anything exciting?

 

Danelle 1:24

Well, today, we are starting the Launchpad, which is Traverse Heights maker space. So we're going to get some kids in there who have earned it and kind of see what they gravitate towards. My favorite part about maker spaces is getting in there and getting started. And then having the kids come in and say things like, why don't you have more Legos? Or, you really can use more duct tape? And then we go, oh, yeah, we need to get those things for the maker space. So I'm excited to get in, get kids in there, and hear their thoughts about what we're missing and what we need so we can get moving and grooving with some maker space stuff.

 

Larry 1:56

Get their minds goin’. 

 

Danelle

Yeah, exactly. 

 

Larry

So You know, our topic today is, is the failure of not failing. 

 

Danelle

Yeah. 

 

Larry

And I just want to come clean on something. So this month, I had been attempting to not do caffeine, or coffee. I, I failed this weekend. 

 

Danelle

That's Okay. 

 

Larry

And it was fabulous. It was absolutely fabulous. 

Moving on from that moment of Zen, it is that time. So get into your lotus position, clear your mind.

 

Larry 2:28

We are supposed to learn from our mistakes. But how can we learn If We are not allowed to make them?

 

Danelle 2:36

Perfect moment of zen for today, Larry.

 

Larry 2:41

So let's get our knives our forks and cut into the meat of the show. Failing. Why is it so important?

 

Danelle 2:50

This is such a hard topic. I hate failure. I hate failure. I, I was the kid that would write my homework in pen and get to the end and make a mistake. And instead of getting white out or scribbling it or just continuing I would get a brand new piece of paper and re copy the entire thing again. It really and I I struggle with this. And I think educators as a whole, we struggle with this because the stakes are so big. You know, the kids in your class, they have one shot at second grade, they have one shot at sixth grade. You have all of these pressures on you from you know, you don't want to let down your administrator. You don't want to let down those parents, you don't want to let down the community. You you've got all this state requirements and state testing and evaluations and just, there's so much on you that it's so scary to step outside the box. And it's so scary to take that that inch of a step because oh my gosh, what if I fail? What iF I mess things up? What if this is not the right move? And I don't know if other professions have this. But man, it is so scary for educators.

 

Larry 4:10

I think it's true in every profession, I think, you know, we've been talking about, or at least in education, community, failure, and allowing our students to fail and learning from our mistakes has been a topic that we've been kind of pushing, I guess, in education for a while now. I don't want to say we pay lip service to it. But I don't think we grasp how ingrained The, the structures are in place to not allow our kids to fail or to fight against that concept. And I think it's true. I was we were talking before the show, I had done a you know, I was attempting to do some research for this. And I did the TED Talk deep dive. And the topics in regards to failure are across the board, from from business, to technology to education, everybody's saying the same thing. They're all saying, we need to allow time for failure, we need to embrace failure. And they all kind of also say the same thing. But everything is working against us. So you know, keep, I guess, keep going. My question is why is it so important? Why are we saying this is something that we that we need to, you know, really shift the paradigm of how we educate, you know, getting away from that winning and being perfect to let's, let's embrace the the mistake.

 

Danelle 5:37

I think all the research is showing us that embracing the mistake is what our kids need. And it's how we move forward in the society. I definitely would point to the Carol Dweck, “The Growth Mindset” book, her idea of just that your your mind is continuing to grow and learn and move forward. And that's that's just kind of how things work. Now, like one of the most successful companies, Google, that you know about their x. Yeah, they have a

 

Larry 6:05

moonshot,

 

Danelle 6:06

moonshot factory, Yes, they have a portion of their company called x. And it's a moonshot factory, they, they dream and they dream big. And they try to break stuff. And they try to do everything that they can to fail, because when you fail, They know that failure is true learning. So when you fail, you are held up on stage and everyone claps for you. And you get a bonus, and you get a vacation and they say, go home, You did great try again tomorrow and come back with a new idea. Because they know that when you fail, you're kind of taking all those things that were awful. Like they talked about Google Glass, specifically, It was one of their failures that came out of x. They take all the things that they learned from that. And then they use that to make a better product the next time or to just come up with better ideas next time. And I think that we need to learn from from that moonshot factory, we need to learn from that The Carol Dweck book and from the whole maker mindset that says, Yeah, you should fail, you should fail miserably. And we know that there's a lot of things in education that needs to change. And that to get to true change, we probably need to break the system completely rebuilt from the ground up. But how do we do that, and that's so scary, and

 

Larry 7:20

We hold things, So many of those things that were used to precious. And one of the, one of the TED talks that I listened to, it was on the Google X and it was Astro Teller, who was talking, And one of the, which is a great name.

 

Larry 7:36

shocking that he's in engineering. Who would’ve thought?

 

Unknown 7:40

So one of the things, one of the comments that he made was, we go into every project thinking we're going to kill the project, you know, that is their, their, their mindset is they get a great idea. And then the rest of the time as they're developing it, They're trying to kill it. And that forces you away from taking the path of least resistance. Most of the time, we're when we're working on a project, We're always looking for the easiest solution, not the best solution. And by going the opposite direction, They end up getting oftentimes the best solution or at least working through most of the flaws, by the time they get to a workable solution. Another thing that you had kind of mentioned was where do we you know, kind of where do we start? How does it how do we build this and one of the one of the issues that I think we come up with or one of the issues we run into is we're typically used to scaffolding, We scaffold one thing above on top of the other, and it makes it a lot of sense is very linear, it's supportive. There's structure underneath it. The problem is there's turbulence underneath it, we're we're trying to build a structure during an earthquake. And the earthquake is constant now, there's there's so much fluctuation, there's so much change, there's so much input, that it's not like we know what the surface is, anymore. There's too much change there. So does the scaffolding technique. Though it makes sense? And it's very intuitive to us. It doesn't necessarily the or the question, I guess would be does it apply to our current circumstance? Is it it's a great system, If The foundation is solid? Do we have to recognize now that the foundation is no longer solid. So that system, it does not make sense any longer. I was listening to By the way, a fabulous TED Talk. Eddie Obeng, super high energy, super fun. But he that's what he was talking about his comment again, on the fact that there's so much turbulence underneath. And when we do get out of it, We're told all these wonderful things about being creative and thinking out of the box. I mean, I mean, that thinking out of the box concept, The problem is, be creative. But if you do crazy things, I'll fire you. You know, the same thing goes for and I'm going on here, but the same thing goes for our students, I think, you know, we want them to, We want them to fail, We want them to take chances and be creative. But then we every single structure that we have in education is counter to that. Here are your grades here, your test results, here's you know, it's so when that is built in from the start. It's hard to kind of be a high school student not be looking that direction. If The goal is winning, There's only one winner, and everyone has failed. If it is usefulness, If the goal is usefulness than anyone taking part in the solution is successful.

 

Danelle 10:32

I never thought about it that way. But you're 100% correct. And

 

Larry 10:34

I think that's that maker space mindset.

 

Danelle 10:37

Like we want kids to be messy and uncomfortable and in fail and fall flat on your face. But we've got grades, and we've got test scores, and we've got all these other things in place that are fighting against that all the time.

 

Larry 10:51

So Danielle, what's the solution? Because I think we can go on. Not that I'm expecting a solution. In fact, what I'd love, I'd love to have some input on this, because I think this is a really important question. And I think it's something that has to be acknowledged. I mean, we look at our ISTE standards, we go through our ISTE standards all the time, because I think they're they're good things empowered learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker, creative communicator, global collaborator, These are not easily scaffolded goals. Not a one of them. This is not a plus b equals C, there isn't one of these goals that you can make simple supporting structures to get to. However, the failure mindset, the mistake mindset, Oh, that all kind of makes sense. It all kind of leads into into these. How do we allow the time maybe that's a good place to start? How do we allow time to fail?

 

Danelle 11:48

You have to how do we not allow time to fail? We can't, we would do our kids a giant disservice if we don't allow that time to fail.

 

Larry 11:56

But it's an efficient, Daniel, it's not.

 

Danelle 11:59

You have to look at the long game though. They need this stuff. And we need to be talking with our kids. Like, when when I sit down with my with my daughter, and I say, let me tell you, mommy was really good to try to meditate. She was gonna try meditation. And I've gotten there twice. And It was awesome both times I did it. But that was going to be my goal. So telling her man, I failed at this, but I didn't fail because I learned so what did I learn? Okay, I learned that. And I talked with her about different structures that I'm going to put in place so that way I can do this or change my goal, or I think you just constantly have to be showing kids and I guess this top down, it's, you know, administrators, giving the teachers the get out of fail free card and telling them I want you to fail, I want you to try things and the teachers telling the kids, you know, I tried this and I failed. And here's how yucky it felt uncomfortable. But here's why No, it was good. Because I know that I learned and like this fits right into math, and it fits right into everything we want our kids to be doing, I think you you don't have an option. I mean, you just can't not do this with your kids.

 

Larry 13:10

When they get to that high school level, that middle school level and they've been indoctrinated into a if they were indoctrinated into a failure is good. Failure does not mean you're a loser failure actually means you're a winner if you're acknowledging it. And when they get into that middle school, when they're starting to really think for themselves, and you know, their, their self esteem isn't necessarily tied directly to what their parents say, having the strength of confidence that if they do make a mistake, it's good, as opposed to something that's going to be a hit to their self esteem. I think for their social socio emotional health, social emotional health, and well being. Having the mistake, the failure mindset be ingrained would be just just a wonderful thing. In their growth, I think they would grow much faster emotionally. If they went into, if they went into those years and into their adulthood with that failure mindset again, And You said it earlier? The long view, you know, kind of that long game in mind.

 

Danelle 14:14

Yeah, 100%.

 

Larry 14:16

I don't think we have any solutions here. Do we have any solutions here?

 

Danelle 14:19

We don't have any solutions. But we do. I mean, I would offer people to check out the “Growth Mindset” book. Check out the Astro Teller TED talk about x, the podcasts “Failure is an Option” by NPR Radio Hour, that was a really good summary of failure with a bunch of different stories. Check out some stuff on the maker movement because the maker movement is really really good at pushing this failure idea. So um, the AJ Giuliani's and the John Spencer's, They talk about failure a lot. And I would just do some learning for yourself about what it means to fail.

 

Larry 14:54

There's a there's a ton of TED talks that I will link to the show notes as well, that talk about this. It's it's really something it's a it's a restart, it is a reset in many ways. And I'm not necessarily a big fan of the full revolution tear down so we can build it back up. And actually, I take I take that back. Actually, I kind of am. To some extent, I don't think it needs to be a violent act, necessarily. But I think there's some there's something to be said for deconstruction sometimes. And I think we might need to take a hard look at that.

 

Danelle 15:24

You said that much more eloquently. That's what I meant, Larry.

 

Larry 15:29

So is there anything else you do have a lot of notes and I don't want to do,

 

Danelle 15:33

I have a lot of notes that are all about my failing is important. So we covered it.

 

Larry 15:38

Alright, so Tech Tool of the Week,

 

Danelle 15:39

Tech Tool of the Week, I'm super excited to check out this tech tool, Adobe Spark just released a big new thing that they are now free for students. So getting kids on Adobe Spark to do some digital storytelling. It's a pretty powerful graphic video stories, web page, graphic design programs. So I'm really excited to get some kids on here, specifically with the maker space and have them work on some digital storytelling. So I'm really excited that Adobe Spark is now free for students and has special things in place for under 13. So I can definitely use this with my kiddos.

 

Larry 16:18

This looks like fun. 

 

Danelle 16:19

Yeah, I know,

 

Larry 16:20

Adobe makes great products, as we know. And usually a lot of times they're professional products in Spark is a great creative product by a company that understands how Creatives think this is cool. I can't wait to wait to see how you talk to other educators about implementing this in their classroom.

 

Danelle 16:40

I will say, I just read about it yesterday. So I'm really excited to get in there and test with some students today. So this is like brand new. All right. Ted, Ted talk about Tech, Tech Tool of the Week. Fail.

 

Larry 16:56

Tutorials and updates. I'm hoping to do a Baumann Certified this week. Maybe. I know there's an email in my inbox. We'll see if he if that's going to work out. Filming Vex Robotics at West Senior High. It is robotic season.

 

Danelle 17:10

It is Robotics Season

 

Larry 17:10

Gonna do some interviewing of some students and see what they're doing. You had mentioned earlier Traverse Heights Launchpad, plan on doing a segment and the Launch pad next week. Super excited about that. In closing, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @TCAPSLoop at @Brostromda and check out the TCAPSLoop blog at tcapsloop.tcaps.net. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, and the Google Play Store. leave a review. We love the feedback.

 

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Music by Podington Bear