Original Post
I took my daughter to spend the next month at the University
of Columbia, Missouri for the Missouri Scholars Academy. It is for the top .5%
of 1% of Missouri's sophomores. The head honcho welcomed everyone by
saying," Welcome to Nerd Camp" and sang the camp song: Hello Mudda,
Hello Fadda, Here I am at Camp Gernerda.... We listened to previous attendees talk
about their experiences and one of them said, "Embrace the next month
because you are stepping into a world of endless possibilities." This took
me back to the chapter I read in Ben Zander's book, "The Art of
Possibilities." The speaker told the students they were the nerds of nerds
and asked them how many times they had failed at something in the past month.
Only a few hands went up. He told them that over the next month, they were
going to make them fail more times than they had their entire 10 years of
schooling. Groans came from the scholar section, but cheering came from the
parents. He wasn't trying to be mean, but pushing these bright, young scholars
into areas they don't enter because of fear. We see nerds and assume they are
good at everything. This usually isn't the case. They find what they are good
at relatively quickly and stick with that sport or hobby because it is safe.
The fear of failure keeps many of these students from expanding. They fear that
people won't think they are smart if they fail, and they fear judgement. I am
excited that they are forcing my daughter to try endless possibilities and look
at the world around her in different ways. I can't wait to see what
possibilities my daughter experienced.
Another chapter that fascinated me was the one on giving
As. I taught 6th grade English for 10 years and I rewrote the curriculum
when I took the job. I created a "Writer's Workshop" model, and
ditched the drill and kill. I wanted my kids to LOVE to write, not just learn
how. I kept detailed grades and notes on each student my first year, and I
didn't see many flourish like I wanted them too. I wanted students to take
risks, try something new, be adventurous. I read lots about grading over that
summer and came up with a new solution. I did give everyone an A to begin with.
If the students completed their writing tasks for the week, they kept the A. I
conference with each student within the week and set up goals with them to work
on. If the student showed they worked toward those goals, they kept the A. I
received flak from others in my building, even the principal for a short time.
Over the remainder of that year, and the 8 that followed, I had students
writing 25 page stories, comic strips, songs, poetry and by the end of the year
most had written over 200 pages of rough draft material. Most of my students
made As. They flourished, took chances, became brave - and in the end... their
state communication arts scores went up as well. Now, I am the middle school
computer technology teacher and I just wrapped up my first year. I am still in
the process of trying to figure out how to Give A, and make them be adventurous
with the digital age.
My Comments
Stacey, thanks for sharing your experience with taking your
daughter to camp. I love the story. In Natasha Beddingfield’s song Unwritten, my
favorite line is “I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines.
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way.” It’s
very freeing to be released from the pressure of having to be successful, a
place where it’s okay to make a mistake.
It’s always interesting to me to hear success stories. I’m always intrigued by the stories of people
who were very average or even low achieving students in school and end up accomplishing
great things…the kids who totally mess up the senior superlative “Most Likely
to Succeed” predictions. They surprise
everyone. Perhaps it’s because they
learned from not doing well. Perhaps
they learned something their high achieving classmates weren’t afforded the
luxury of learning: how to learn from
failure. I’m glad your daughter has been
set-up to fail. Undoubtedly, it will
bring her many successes from a new freedom to explore possibilities.
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