October 18th
Pompeii day lives in infamy for me in terms of losing myself in the curriculum and not the classroom. They learned about the landscape of the Mediterranean, learned about how the volcanoes that dot the landscape are beneficial for the environment, beneficial for the populations, but can cause destruction. Destruction, of course, that archaeologists can then study.
Their activity was to build a temple, one made of 50 popsicle sticks, three feet of masking tape, and a single piece of paper. I explained to them that they would have to survive the shaking, but also try to build the tallest or most impressive structure. They got a few moments to plan by themselves, then time to plan with their randomly assigned group. Finally, they got about 30 minutes to build their structure. On the projector were pictures of grand Roman temples I hoped they would feel inspired to emulate. After ten minutes of building time, I wandered around the room. They were sitting around piles of sticks, mats taped together, only a few inches of masking tape remaining. Confused, I kneeled down to talk to a group.
“Is this a wall?” I asked, pointing to the mat.
“No, it’s our building. But it’s not working.”
“Not working?”
They explained to me that they had run out of tape trying to make the strongest and most sturdy base possible. It seemed to me that they had gotten so carried away with the “survival” aspect of the prompt that they were putting inhibitors on their creativity. They thought that, if they failed to construct something that could survive the simulated volcano, they would be failures. By the end of the 30 minutes, when I collected all of their work, not a single construction had any height off the ground.
They started calling the little area on the counter where their piles of popsicle sticks laid “The Graveyard,” teasing themselves and each other about how they hadn’t built buildings, but just mats of popsicle sticks taped together haphazardly. They even used a stray piece of masking tape to label the area. To them, “The Graveyard” was a monument to their failure. I knew, at that moment, that this was going to be a learning opportunity. This wouldn’t be the end of the activity. I was altering the schedule. I started moving my activities around on my planner. I was not going to let my failure to accommodate their learning end in them feeling embarrassed or ashamed. As an educator and mentor to these kids, I should have helped them to understand the goal of the activity was trial and error, problem solving, communication, and just some hands on fun. They didn’t understand my perspective as a teacher, that I wouldn’t get mad or be disappointed if their building didn’t stand up. They saw me as every other teacher before me, knowing that if they, high ability students, didn’t turn in perfection, they shouldn’t turn in anything at all.
About a week later, I made a surprise extra visit to the classroom, and I apologized to them. I explained that I had miscommunicated, that they and I had a misunderstanding. “Build up!” I told them, “Don’t be afraid if it’ll fall! You’ve never built a building before, you’re not going to be an expert!”
And there they went: six inches tall, eight inches tall, nine inches tall, twelve inches tall, twelve inches, thirteen and a half. Only one construction buckled. The ideas that they were sharing, the excitement, the frustration. All of the feelings felt so big when they knew that they couldn’t “fail.” The highs were high, the cheering was loud when a temple stayed up, the lows were low when they fell. But there was no grade, no punishment. Only graceful students congratulating each other and sharing comments about how their buildings could be improved.
Who had really failed in this situation?
I certainly felt like I did. I was their teacher, I was meant to guide them through experimentation and cushion their fall when things didn’t work out the way they intended. Instead, they truly believed that, if they couldn’t succeed on the first try, they were failures. In their heads, they thought that I would “fail” them, even though they consciously knew that I wasn’t giving them grades for any activity in the entire semester.
But, the important part of this story is, much like how students learn to adapt through a fear of failure, teachers must as well. It is not a reflection on personal merit or ability to have an activity that doesn’t resonate with your students. The goal is to overcome, to learn from their quirks, and to return the vulnerability that you ask from them.
And, they were better off for it.
