"I don't care what it was designed to do. I care what it can do."
Quoted from the infamous Apollo 13 mission, Mark Simmons began our TedX Congress Avenue event. How many times are we limited by a product or vision because we are focused on what it is supposed to do? How many times has that stifled our creativity? How often does that happen to students?
When I taught high school English, so many of my students had a hard time beginning writing because they were too afraid to fail at it or they didn't know the correct way to start. Therefore, I would begin my spiel on how there is no "correct" way to be creative. This belief that you had to do something one way and one way only is stifling. It's what turns our child artists into non-artists. Any art teacher will tell you that we are all artists, but somewhere along the way, we are told we are not because we do something in a non-standard way or it doesn't measure up to society's standards of art. However, it is still art.
Likewise, whurley, founder of Chaotic Moon Studios in Austin, Texas said we have to create opportunities to fail. It's not about spending 8-10 years perfecting something, but trying something completely different, not begin afraid to take risks. It is the risks that get us on the Discovery Channel. It is the risks that push us forward. And, we have to understand the difference between invention and innovation. Invention may take years, but innovation doesn't need to. Innovation is taking something already out there and using it in a new way - just like the famed astronaut said: "I don't care what it was designed to do. I care what it can do."
I left TedX thinking about how creativity and "failing forward" affect education - how we drill in the correct and wrong ways of doing something. We live in a time of innovation, open access to information - should we not take advantage of this? How can we get our students, educators, administrators to take risks, to fail so they can move forward? How can we reward creativity without killing the genius, making us mad?
As I gear up for our Tech Fest, I want to find ways to fostering this creativity in students while holding them accountable.
Quoted from the infamous Apollo 13 mission, Mark Simmons began our TedX Congress Avenue event. How many times are we limited by a product or vision because we are focused on what it is supposed to do? How many times has that stifled our creativity? How often does that happen to students?
When I taught high school English, so many of my students had a hard time beginning writing because they were too afraid to fail at it or they didn't know the correct way to start. Therefore, I would begin my spiel on how there is no "correct" way to be creative. This belief that you had to do something one way and one way only is stifling. It's what turns our child artists into non-artists. Any art teacher will tell you that we are all artists, but somewhere along the way, we are told we are not because we do something in a non-standard way or it doesn't measure up to society's standards of art. However, it is still art.
Likewise, whurley, founder of Chaotic Moon Studios in Austin, Texas said we have to create opportunities to fail. It's not about spending 8-10 years perfecting something, but trying something completely different, not begin afraid to take risks. It is the risks that get us on the Discovery Channel. It is the risks that push us forward. And, we have to understand the difference between invention and innovation. Invention may take years, but innovation doesn't need to. Innovation is taking something already out there and using it in a new way - just like the famed astronaut said: "I don't care what it was designed to do. I care what it can do."
I left TedX thinking about how creativity and "failing forward" affect education - how we drill in the correct and wrong ways of doing something. We live in a time of innovation, open access to information - should we not take advantage of this? How can we get our students, educators, administrators to take risks, to fail so they can move forward? How can we reward creativity without killing the genius, making us mad?
As I gear up for our Tech Fest, I want to find ways to fostering this creativity in students while holding them accountable.
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