Innovation in Education

Several weeks ago, I posted about traditions in education and promised a future post on innovation.  Since this exam week (and I didn't really want to post about that), I thought this might be a good time to discuss innovation in the classroom.

First, let's address this.  Innovation in the classroom is not new.  It just happens at a faster rate now than ever before, so it looks different.  When teachers started using paper instead of slates in their classrooms, they were trying something new.  When slide rules were replaced with calculators, it was innovative and scary, and there were people who thought it would be the downfall of math.

This brings me to the second point I want to address.  Innovation is, has been, and always will be - scary.  Think about the last time you did something you had never done before (cooking class, new job, new exercise program).  It is always off putting at best.  This is because of an educational concept I teach the kids.  It is called mental disequilibrium.  Most of the time, you walk around with a brain that is in reasonable balance.  When you encounter something new (or upsetting, like a fight with a friend), the balance is thrown off a bit.  After you have had time to practice with the new thing or adjust to the upsetting thing, your brain returns to a state of balance with the new information or skill.  That is what learning is - throwing off and then restoring the balance.   The statement I make to my kids is, "If you are never confused, you are never learning."


Guess what, folks.  This isn't just for the kids.   We also need to learn new things, change old habits, and try something scary.  For some reason, we expect to never be confused again after we have a diploma in our hands.  Maybe, that is because we only ever viewed education as a way to get a job and think once we have that job, we no longer need to learn anything.  That is just stupid, but I'll save that for another post.

Innovation - trying new things - even when we are afraid to fail - letting things be confusing until they aren't any more - These are the things that make us human.  We are made in the image of a God who creates.  What makes us think we wouldn't create as well?  There isn't a special class of creative people because we are all made in the image of a creative God.  We must model this for our students by trying new things in our classrooms.

Traditions are important.  I posted about that weeks ago, but innovation is what keeps the human race moving forward.  We harnessed the power of fire, invented the wheel, invented the telephone, invented the airplane, went to the moon, invented the internet, and whatever comes next because that is what God has put within us all.

As teachers, we must teach innovation by modeling innovation.  We all had a teacher who had taught for 25 years but really had just taught one year 25 times.  That person was NOT our favorite teacher.  He or she did what was easiest, not necessarily what was best.  We must show them how to overcome the fear of failure by trying something new, even if it flops.

I am in a school that encourages this.  We have the freedom to try something new and then mop it up if it makes a mess.  Our IT department gives us missions to try new technological tools, and we get badges (and sometimes prizes) when we do.  If I need to talk over a new idea, they are there for that.  If I ask them to come to my room while we try it the first time, they are there for that too.  They are super helpful.  Our administration supports us when we try new things and helps us figure out how to clean it up if it doesn't work.  They also know that sometimes it may not work the first time but will work next year because we learn from our mistakes.  Our principal, Mandy Gill, in particular, is one of the best problem solvers I have ever known.  If we run into a problem with something we are trying, she doesn't just have us drop it; she helps us figure out how to fix it.  Other teachers are helpful as well.  There is absolutely new competition between our teachers; so if you need a sounding board or a partner on something new, they are are all totally up for it.

Because of this atmosphere, I think we are school of creativity; and I believe our students have absorbed that spirit as well.  They have learned to overcome the fear of new things, and I can't think of anything that will help them more in the post school world than that.

The Game is Not Over

Monday afternoon I went to photograph our middle school basketball teams at a home game.  I did what I often do when there are back to back games.  I got there for the second half of the girls game and stayed through the first half of the boys game.  At half time of the boys game, I often decide whether or not I will stay based on the score.  If we are really far ahead or behind, I usually make the decision to go home and eat dinner.  When I left this game, we were far enough behind that I believed I wouldn't miss any dramatic moments.

I was wrong.

The next morning, I see a video posted on Twitter from the last seconds of the game.  During the last few minutes, our boys had mounted a comeback and achieved a 42-42 tie.  In the last second, this seventh grader, figuring there was nothing to lose by shooting chucked the ball from almost half a court away.  In the video, it doesn't even look like the ball is heading in the right direction until - swish - it dropped right in the basket.  The place went nuts.  Our varsity team was there to see it.  The kid was a hero.  It was simply an amazing moment.  I missed it because I thought I knew what was going to happen.

We all experience situations in our lives in which we believe we know what is going to happen. If we envision a negative result, we sometimes give up.  It is certainly easier to quit a job that stick with one through a difficult time.  It seems easier to quit a relationship that is going through a difficult time than it would be to see it through.  The problem with that logic is that when you bail out, you never experience the comeback.

If our boys had gone into the locker room at half time and taken a vote to go home because they were losing, it certainly would have been easier.  They would have gone home, had dinner, listened to their moms tell them that they were special anyway.  It would have been easier, but it would not have been better.  There would be no video on Twitter.  There would been no crowd cheering.  There would have been no hero moment.  There isn't a hero until a situation arises that requires a hero.

Instead, those boys went into the locker room and decided to turn things around.  This wasn't easy.  They had to overcome the momentum already established by the other team.  They had to increase their defense and their offense at the same time.  They had to overcome their own psychology from being behind the first half.  The kid who made that last shot knew it might not go in, and he had to be okay with that.  None of this was easy.  

Recognizing that the game is not over is an important life skill.  Starting the year with a bad grade doesn't mean you will end the year with one.  Starting the year with a badly behaved class doesn't mean you have give up and keep it that way.  Turning it around isn't easy, but it is the only way to win.  Nothing worth having is easy.

Too Much but Not Enough

The three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break are just a little strange.  The kids just a got a taste of the coming break, and they are counting down the days until Christmas.  Even though we should be well rested from having the Thanksgiving holidays, we aren't.  Thanksgiving is not super restful even if you do slip into a tryptophan coma after lunch.  It's too hectic to be restful.

I am in a school that is committed to having first semester exams before Christmas break, and I am glad for that.  I have experienced both before and after Christmas exams both as a teacher and as a student, and it is immeasurably better to have them before the holidays.  However, it creates a  predicament in these weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We have too much time and not enough time.

We left for thanksgiving with two chapters left in my 8th grade curriculum.  There is not enough time to do those two chapters justice.  They are on solutions and on acids and bases.  However, there is too much time to just stop here and start reviewing for exams.  That would be waaaaaaay to much reviewing.  You may be thinking teach one of the chapters and save the other one for after Christmas, but these two chapters are extremely connected.  It would also create a situation in May where I would have to eliminate the teaching of magnets (and if there were any snow days in second semester, eliminate the teaching of electricity as well).  This is not desirable; I would much rather teach electricity than solutions.   I am pretty sure the kids wouldn't want to give up electricity either.

I am not in a unique position here.  Every teacher is making choices right now.  What do I include?  What do I exclude?  How fast can I teach it and not kill the kids?  It feels strange, but this is actually something we do every day all year long.  We just don't feel it at the other times because an approaching deadline has special psychological powers. 

Leonard Bernstein is credited with saying, "To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time."  I think it ties in with the English proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention."  We, as human beings, rarely do anything until we have to - until there is something pushing us to do it - until we think it may not be possible. 

Deadlines are amazing.  They are when we figure out how to do too much with too little.  They are when we figure out what is essential.