The Last Lecture and First Penguins

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image from tldp.org

I'm reading the Last Lecture book and can relate to Randy Pausch in quite a few ways.  Although I'm thankful not to have any terminal illness,  I can relate because I have children of similar age, teach, and I also grew up in Pittsburgh.  One thing of the many that I appreciate about his comments was his First Penguin Award that he gave out to the "glorious failures,"  those students who took a daring risk at doing something innovative yet crashed and burned.

The education world consistently rewards success and punishes failures.  Whether it's SAT's or English papers or designing products.  It encourages students to do the safe thing.  Do the easy, conservative solution.  Do what the professor "likes." Uninspiring, yet slightly better than what was done before.  Design school can foster the same environment.   And you end up getting a dozen graduates whose portfolios look nearly identical.  Students are scared to death of failing, so they tone it down, and spend too much time rendering a crummy computer model.

How can I encourage these students to take risks? To take a chance and go bold?  I think it's like doing tricks on a snowboard.  If there's no fresh, soft snow to cushion my landing when trying to do an air, I'm scared to try it.  Especially when it's "hard pack granular" snow, like all you New Englanders are all too familiar with (AKA ice.)  If I try something and fall, I'm going to hurt, and may end up in a ski patrol toboggan, so unless I have a disregard for my safety, I'm not going to try that switch 360.

But if there's plentiful powder, it's another story.  I'll try it, because the consequences of failing aren't so bad, maybe a tumble and a face full of snow.  So how do you do it at the Unversity?  This should be the place for students to safely fail, because that's where the learning happens.  Pausch gave out a stuffed penguin to the team that tried hard but failed, maybe it's a bitter sweet consolation prize, but it's at least an acknowledgement.

Is the goal of education success or is it learning?  If it's learning, then success or failure is a minor consequence.  Do we want more designers in self-preservation mode, or ones that will innovate our way out of this collective economic and environmental mess?

Comments

Jeffrey said…
hi, my name is jeff and this is pretty much the first ID-related blog that i find rather inspiring and interesting to read. just wanting to say thanks for contributing.
January 30, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Jason Morris said…
Thanks for the encouragement, Jeffrey!
January 31, 2009 at 8:29 PM
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