From some of our strongest emotions come some of our greatest sources of inspiration. We all seek to have positive experiences and responses throughout our life. Yet, it is naive to believe that we can avoid anger, fear, rage, and frustration. The design process is often frustrating and infuriating, but there are those moments when it can be fascinating. Afterall, without any pressure, there would be no diamonds. One of the biggest lessons I have learned this year is to teach my students about failure. Nothing is worse for students than failing in a project, especially after spending time and effort in the development of ideas and turning them into a final product. On the other hand, failure can be a unique opportunity to learn and improve one’s self. Designing experiments, prototypes, and interactions and testing them is at the heart of design process. Yet, so is an understanding that not all of them are going to work. As we seek to solve big problems, we’re bound to fail. But if we adopt the right mindset, we’ll inevitably learn something from that failure.
Throughout this past year, I have had many conversations with my peer and focus group on the concept of STEM education most have embraced it. In fact, there is widespread consensus that our education system needs to do a better job at promoting and supporting STEM education. Yet the problems remain. Our education system is designed to reward success based on attributes that are measureable. MSU doesn’t admit students that demonstrate the ability to learn from failure, they reward students that demonstrate the ability to recall facts on an ACT/SAT exam. So, until policies change from the top down, teachers will still be pressured to give students all the answers, students will be focused on improving their scores, and failure will continue to be frowned upon.
Throughout this past year, I have had many conversations with my peer and focus group on the concept of STEM education most have embraced it. In fact, there is widespread consensus that our education system needs to do a better job at promoting and supporting STEM education. Yet the problems remain. Our education system is designed to reward success based on attributes that are measureable. MSU doesn’t admit students that demonstrate the ability to learn from failure, they reward students that demonstrate the ability to recall facts on an ACT/SAT exam. So, until policies change from the top down, teachers will still be pressured to give students all the answers, students will be focused on improving their scores, and failure will continue to be frowned upon.