Sunday, August 12, 2018

FFT #1 2018-19. Trial Error and the God Complex.

Dear all,

Welcome back to Food For Thought. I was going to start the year with  a couple of posts on AI but watched this TED and thought what a great provocation this would be for us all at the start of the year. It touches on several things that we should be thinking about at ISHCMC and as teachers.

Watch the TED talk by Tim Harford and I think you will see a few things to think about for you as a teacher.



Why I shared this old TED, 2011, is because never has it been more relevant for us at ISHCMC. Firstly, it starts by telling a story that draws us in to the message that Tim Harford wants us to take away. As I said in my opening address at the start of year, story telling is an important tool for embedding learning in our students, I feel this TED demonstrates this technique very well.

Secondly, as teachers we are often seen as the Gods in our classrooms, something that we are moving away from with the gradual release of learning that is taking place at school. In the talk, Tim Harford, lambastes schools for continuing to reinforce the God Complex through asking questions to which there is a right or wrong answer. How often do we ask students questions that have no answer? Does there always have to be an answer for it to be a good question? Should we still be teaching students through our questioning and systems that there is always a right answer that reveals what they have learned? 

Thirdly, and very importantly for our Studio 4, 5 and Grade 6 work, Tim Harford expresses that you don't always have to prove you are right to be doing what is right. If you move away from the God Complex way of thinking to accept the importance of trial and error you can re-think anything. The key is to be using what your learn at each stage to make what you do next time better. In the end, and it might take a few cycles, if you learn from your errors you will end up with a better product.

Finally, we all know that to solve critical problems there has to be the determination to try and try again. How many are solved first time? If they are, were they a critical problem in the first place? We talk about resilience, failing and getting back up and trying again. This is what Tim Harford stresses in his talk, the trial and error mentality that is needed to critically problem solve. 

This TED definitely emphasizes what we are trying to achieve at ISHCMC by re-imagining education. If we are going to develop creative problem solvers capable of surviving in the 2020's we need to more routinely ask questions to which there are no correct answers, encourage our students to challenge the God Complex way of thinking and be prepared to approach problems from every angle, not just the traditional one. Archie the star of the story has continued to think differently and look for new solutions. Obviously, for others who have a fixed mindset in the medical world this made him difficult but as Tim Harford concludes this didn't stop him being right. 

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