This weekend I was watching Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. My feelings about the movie were mixed. However, one thing about the movie that I found delightfully refreshing was the opportunity to see an on screen heroine boldly and actively pursuing what is right and just. Watching Alice constantly propelling herself forward toward her goal tapped in to the desire I have for my students to do the same. It left a question echoing in my mind.
How do you get students to jump down the rabbit hole?
One of my continuing challenges as an educator is to create an environment in which my students feel safe taking chances. I have written on this topic before, and I feel it is an appropriate time to return to it now that I have some experience attempting to create such an environment. My first impulse was to shield and protect my students from failure. I figured, if they took a chance and succeeded they would be more comfortable taking them in the future. When lesson planning, I tried to think of all the possible ways my students could make a mistake and then created safeguards within a lesson plan to ensure no such hiccups occurred.
This was very silly.
Obviously, it is impossible to think of everything that can go wrong, and attempting such a feat is hugely counterproductive. The message I ended up sending to my students was that you should always be cautious and do things perfectly the first time you try. It is completely possible that they came away from my lessons believing that doing a good job requires following a set of explicit and detailed instructions and creating an end product that fits a strict set of criteria. Planning lessons in this way makes it impossible for students to get comfortable taking chances because there are no chances to be taken.
Then last night all the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head regarding chance taking finally conga lined into a single stream of conscious thought.
Alice can fall because she has fallen before.
In Burton’s adaptation of the tale, Alice is returning to Wonderland as a young woman. Which means when she jumps into that rabbit hole she can do it without batting an eye because she has done it before and it turned out fine. This isn’t a perfect metaphor. In the movie Alice does not remember having been to Wonderland before and she thinks she is in a dream, but stick with me on this.
When I think of my own life and the moments when I have exhausted my ability to analyze, criticize, categorize, and every other “ize” you can think of for a decision, experience with falling is what allows me to finally say, “what the hell” and go for it. I have lept into the murky unknowns of life before, I have fallen into the blackness, and I have hit the ground at the bottom.'
Sometimes that ground is an embracing plushy surface that allows me to get up immediately and move on feeling glad that I jumped. Sometimes it is fitted with long jagged spikes that leave my body mangled and leave me seriously questioning why I ever thought jumping was anything but insane.
What always saved me from remaining impaled, hurt, and defeated was that during my early “spikes at the bottom” experiences is that someone was there. Many people actually were there to say, "Wow Erin, you really f-ed this up, but you are not done, you are not defeated. Get up, learn from what has happened, and move forward." This was essential, because I learned that I could make mistakes. I could make huge mistakes, and with time and perseverance, I could recover and move forward.
I need to let my students hit the spikes.
However, when they do, I need to be there to help them stitch up the wounds and move forward. Hopefully that way, when they come to a rabbit hole in the future, they will jump with the understanding that regardless of what awaits them at the bottom, they will learn many valuable things about themselves and about life. More importantly, they will know that no matter what awaits them they possess the strength to propel themselves toward their dreams for the future.But what is the best way to do that?
How do you get students to jump down the rabbit hole?
One of my continuing challenges as an educator is to create an environment in which my students feel safe taking chances. I have written on this topic before, and I feel it is an appropriate time to return to it now that I have some experience attempting to create such an environment. My first impulse was to shield and protect my students from failure. I figured, if they took a chance and succeeded they would be more comfortable taking them in the future. When lesson planning, I tried to think of all the possible ways my students could make a mistake and then created safeguards within a lesson plan to ensure no such hiccups occurred.
This was very silly.
Obviously, it is impossible to think of everything that can go wrong, and attempting such a feat is hugely counterproductive. The message I ended up sending to my students was that you should always be cautious and do things perfectly the first time you try. It is completely possible that they came away from my lessons believing that doing a good job requires following a set of explicit and detailed instructions and creating an end product that fits a strict set of criteria. Planning lessons in this way makes it impossible for students to get comfortable taking chances because there are no chances to be taken.
Then last night all the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head regarding chance taking finally conga lined into a single stream of conscious thought.
Alice can fall because she has fallen before.
In Burton’s adaptation of the tale, Alice is returning to Wonderland as a young woman. Which means when she jumps into that rabbit hole she can do it without batting an eye because she has done it before and it turned out fine. This isn’t a perfect metaphor. In the movie Alice does not remember having been to Wonderland before and she thinks she is in a dream, but stick with me on this.
When I think of my own life and the moments when I have exhausted my ability to analyze, criticize, categorize, and every other “ize” you can think of for a decision, experience with falling is what allows me to finally say, “what the hell” and go for it. I have lept into the murky unknowns of life before, I have fallen into the blackness, and I have hit the ground at the bottom.'
Sometimes that ground is an embracing plushy surface that allows me to get up immediately and move on feeling glad that I jumped. Sometimes it is fitted with long jagged spikes that leave my body mangled and leave me seriously questioning why I ever thought jumping was anything but insane.
What always saved me from remaining impaled, hurt, and defeated was that during my early “spikes at the bottom” experiences is that someone was there. Many people actually were there to say, "Wow Erin, you really f-ed this up, but you are not done, you are not defeated. Get up, learn from what has happened, and move forward." This was essential, because I learned that I could make mistakes. I could make huge mistakes, and with time and perseverance, I could recover and move forward.
I need to let my students hit the spikes.
However, when they do, I need to be there to help them stitch up the wounds and move forward. Hopefully that way, when they come to a rabbit hole in the future, they will jump with the understanding that regardless of what awaits them at the bottom, they will learn many valuable things about themselves and about life. More importantly, they will know that no matter what awaits them they possess the strength to propel themselves toward their dreams for the future.But what is the best way to do that?
