Submitted by auerbach on
There is a quote floating around that has, at times, been attributed to Albert Einstein: "A genius is someone who makes every mistake once." ...
Regardless of whether it comes from Einstein or not, this quote unfolds with layers of textured meaning. In as few as nine words, it makes bold statements about (i) educational psychology (how we learn), (ii) epistemology (limits of knowledge), and (iii) ethics (appropriate actions). Here's what I mean ...
How we Learn. We learn by making mistakes and reflecting on our experiences, so we don't make the same mistake twice. This is way stronger than "even geniuses make mistakes;" this is "you must make mistakes if you want deep and enduring knowledge."
Limits of Knowledge. If we have to make every mistake to become a genius, I guess there are no geniuses, because there seem to be an infinite number of possible mistakes. That's also reassuring -- it puts everyone more-or-less in the same boat. This point is central to my own educational philosophy -- I begin by assuming that all students can learn it all.
Appropriate Actions. If we agree that obtaining deep and enduring knowledge is a laudable objective, then placing ourselves in challenging situations that are likely to yield mistakes is the way to go. We have choice in this, in the classes and jobs we take, in our projects and case studies, and in our everyday experiences -- we have numerous opportunities to step up and challenge ourselves.
This begs the obvious question: why are we so afraid to make mistakes? Is it because we may feel dumb, which hurts? Is it because we are afraid that our friends, family, and/or peers may think we are dumb, which hurts way more? Or is it because of a K-12 educational system that relies more and more on standardized testing, which does one thing really well: it penalizes you for making mistakes! I guess the answer is yes, yes, and yes.
Sounds like I'm suggesting we need some educational reform. Reform like iCons. Sir Ken Robinson has a great animation on this [1], brought to my attention by Austin Barnes in our iCons I class. Sir Ken's animation sounds like an advertisement for iCons -- check it out yourself and let me know what you think.
I think Sir Ken's animation is pure genius, but then again, I may be mistaken.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=relmfu
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