Last post, I wrote about instilling a culture of craftsmanship. This is no easy feat. I could claim I have a culture of craftsmanship and turn out show worthy projects simply by setting up machines and running an assembly line operation.
I can claim I have a culture of student-centered learning, student choice, learning through play, using student interests, individualized and inquiry instruction and end up with many projects coming out of the shop of mediocre quality to go home to accepting parents who put the project in the same category as cute projects to put into storage with homemade fathers day cards and elementary school drawings.
Of course, my end goal isn't project quality; but it does play an important role in the development of student skills. It plays an important role in student character as well.
In this response to the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, I wrote this about making mistakes in our classroom:
A strength of our program is giving students the freedom to make mistakes. Our program takes pride in allowing students to make mistakes. Our program will often let the mistakes happen given the mistake is not a safety risk. This provides a window of opportunity for problem solving, a skill that is transferable across all fields.
Once, in the middle of a unit, I had students write down the most important thing they learned so far on a post-it note. I was expecting responses of measuring, print reading or using a particular tool. Instead, I got a handful of post-it notes that said things like: "It's okay to make mistakes," and "If you mess up, you can fix it."
Student motivation drops after they realize they've made a mistake. I'd love to say "Have some grit. Persevere. Push through!" and often times I do. But, the fact of the matter is, is it's human nature to let a setback get to you. So I've recently changed my language to "How long are you going to let this set you back?"
This dialogue is important because at a certain point, with low motivation, and usually frustration, students will begin to accept the mistakes. As they accept more and more mistakes, the work becomes harder and harder to bring to it's intended quality. Often times students will make claims "I like it this way." "It adds character." "My mom doesn't care." Or they're just unsatisfied with their work and have little confidence moving forward in the content.
So I counteract, talking about the finer points of craftsmanship and emphasizing care, precision, quality of work. And now I have a bunch of students who are afraid to move forward. They are afraid to make mistakes.
It's a paradox. Teach students with emphasis on high quality craftsmanship and it's importance and you end up with an audience afraid to move forward and make mistakes. Allow students plenty of freedom to make mistakes and you end up with an audience unsatisfied with their work or ignorantly accepting of their flawed 'craftsmanship'.
I have decided the best approach is to show the spectrum of acceptable (functional but not much else) project quality to craftsmanship quality with physical examples. As we build picture frames, and Timmy makes a mistake, that he does not want to correct, I can say, "Okay, but your project will be closer to the acceptable end of the spectrum." If Timmy decides that's okay, at least he's not ignorant of what craftsmanship is, and I've still allowed an authentic test of student decision-making skills based on a level of self-awareness.
I've also added in explicit instruction on dealing with mistakes.
Can I find the happy medium? I'm not sure, but it does seem to get a little better every day. What was your reaction to the last major setback you faced caused by an error you made? What tips do you have for our youth in this very common real-life experience. Please share in the comments below.
Write a comment