Read the full transcript of Episode 19 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, which features Laura McBain, K12 Lab director of community and implementation at the Stanford d. School, joining Tim Fish to talk about learning through failure and the role of student agency in developing schools for the future.
Tim Fish: Today, I am so excited to welcome Laura McBain to New View EDU. Laura is the K12 Lab Director of Community and Implementation at the Stanford d.school. In this role, she leads the K12 Lab and aims to design thinking to transform education and the world as a human-centered designer. Her work focuses on understanding the ecosystem of education and finding meaningful opportunities for disruptive design.
She is an advocate for equity and social justice work, and is leading experiments to ensure more students have access to an innovative educational experience that will help them thrive in a changing world. Formerly, Laura was the director of external relations at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. She traveled the globe designing and leading professional development focused on the implementation of progressive education, school transformation, deeper learning and equity initiatives.
She has also served as principal of two High Tech High sites and has taught middle and high school classes in public charter and comprehensive schools. Laura was the architect of the Deeper Learning Conference, which I actually attended, a 1,200 person adult learning experience aimed at activating and galvanizing educators for large scale change.
Laura, I am so excited to welcome you to New View EDU. Thanks so much for joining us.
Laura McBain: I am excited, Tim. I, we've had so many great conversations over the, over the two years on Zoom and in person, and I'm excited for this call today.
Tim Fish: So I'm going to kick off with a question that got this whole podcast going. This idea of at this moment, the purpose of school, like why do you think we even have school? You know, if you think back a long time ago, 1890s, and the Committee of Ten, school was a lot about curriculum and about covering it. About preparing students to, to work in a largely sort of mechanized production workforce.
Things certainly have changed in that amount of time. And I'm wondering what you think the purpose of school is today.
Laura McBain: Ah, that's a really great question. And I love your like, throwback to like where school was or what the purpose of schooling was years, and almost more than a hundred years, ago. And then where we're going. You know, and things have radically shifted. I mean, I think for me, I think the simplest way, when I think about the purpose of education or the purpose of learning that we live in today's role now is to really enable every young person, every person to actually find themselves in the future.
I think that, for the last 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, we've created a system where young people are, their paths are predicted for them. Is that, it's laid out, their lives are laid out by whether they go to university, whether they go into voc ed or whether they go into a career technical program, we've almost predicted the lives of young people based on social class, race, gender identity, all the lines. Demographics, social class, you name it.
And I think the purpose now is actually education continue—and should be—the great equalizer. It should be the thing that allows every person in this world to not only be a part of the world, but shape the world in which they want to live in, which means designing new career paths, new industries, and really allowing them to be fully, fully realized as an individual, as a human and as a contributor to society.
I won't go super deep on this, but I think there is a desperate need right now for educators and young people to think about themselves as citizens of the world and how the, their learning contributes, not just to the content that they're consuming, but the work that they're creating and impact they need to have on their communities right now.
So I don't think, I think the purpose of education, you know, has been about consumption. And I think as we're moving into this new normal, whatever you want to call it now, it's about creation and impact. And how do we make every young person and ensure that every adult that's working in schools, they can feel that, that they can feel that they can have an impact and make this world a better place.
Tim Fish: I love that, move into creation and impact. That idea for me, it's such an inspiring concept, to think that school becomes the place where every student, every individual, as you put it, in that community, is on the path of finding their future. And then I think about my school experience. And I think, yeah, that wasn't what my school experience was about. Like, it may be the same for you.
Laura McBain: Mine either.
Tim Fish: How do we start imagining what the daily lived experience for students and staff looks like each day?
Laura McBain: I mean, that's a really interesting thing because I think that like, it's kind of a misnomer because in our daily lives, like in, in and outside of school, like outside of the actual structures of classroom, every person is a creator. From like age of like, five years old, young people are bringing in their lives, the pictures that they draw, the drawings they're doing at their house, we are by nature, creators.
Human beings. That's what we do. We create things, by our nature, whether it's the wheel, whether it's an art piece, whether it's a game that you like do with like, you know, the towels and the blankets in your house, the forts, we've all—
Tim Fish: Forts with sheets!
Laura McBain: Right? Yeah.
Tim Fish: Exactly. Yeah. And chairs, I dragged in from the dining room.
Laura McBain: That's right. Yes! That's an act of creation.
That is what we do by nature, because I think humans by nature are curious. You know, that's what we like to do. And I think one of the things that we need to do is not just think about, like, as you said, like actually tap into that, where actually are we already creating things in our lives actually—and I think that means actually widening our aperture about where young people are actually creating things that matter to them, whether it's at their home, is it online, is it in a classroom? What are the avenues through which we can actually create structures, projects, experiences where young people are creating something for themselves and their community that never existed before. And that can take the form of project based learning, design projects, service learning, forums, you name it, lots of avenues to do that.
But I think fundamentally, I think how we do it is to remind ourselves, right, that as humans, we are actually always creating something. We're not consumers. We are, you know, we are too, but really how do we get back to that mindset that like that five-year-old, you know, your son or daughter that was creating that fort in the living room, is a process of architecture, is a process of imagination, is a process of community building something together.
And that is our nature. And so how do we actually get better at noticing those moments, and observing those moments when we see them in schools and actually allowing them to thrive and not just push them down as like, oh, this is a thing people just did, but actually, how do we create more containers and celebrate those when we see them?
Tim Fish: I love it. You know, it makes me think back when I was a child, about 12, 13 years old one summer, some friends and I went out in the woods and we built a tree fort, right? And as we were building that tree fort and we were creating it and we were making mistakes along the way, there was never a moment in that, that I worried that we were going to fail in the creation of our tree fort, right? The tree fort was what it was. It was the creation that we were making. And yet when I went to school that fall, there was a lot of times I was worried about failing.
Laura McBain: Hmm.
Tim Fish: And I love that you are releasing a new book, coming out probably very close to when this podcast hits the, hits the airwaves.
And in this book, you're focused on the concept of failure. In fact, the title is My Favorite Failure. And I just think that's such a provocative title, because I imagined something like the title to be, if I were writing it, I would have a title like overcoming failure or beyond failure or finding success on the other side of failure.
But you didn't go that way. Instead, you and your co-author chose My Favorite Failure. I would love to hear more about how you ended up with that title, and what you're trying to accomplish with the book.
Laura McBain: Thank you for recognizing that. And I think that's, I mean, I think it comes from a deep space of watching stories about failure or stories of success. And, you know, as a designer, I am situated here in Silicon Valley. You know, I have a lot of startup folks around me and I have been to, I can't tell you how many events, where I have, I've heard an amazing person talking about, I did 1,200 prototypes of this thing, and then I got to success and now I raised a hundred million dollars and this is my thing. And while I think that's obviously laudable—I'm a designer. I believe in prototyping—I felt that there was something missing in that arc. That really like, I think that, What does it mean?
Because we fail every day. You know, we have these moments of learning. And they don't always have to lead to the next startup, the next prototype, the next big idea. They're actually just part of the learning process. They become a fabric of who we are. And I think sometimes when we in, in schools in particular, you know, we set students up for success really well, but we actually don't anticipate failure that much.
We don't teach them how to learn through failure. Because we're so focused on getting the outcome, the grade, the project, right, that we don't just sit with the moments of those, what we call those favorite moments of failure, which are the ones that changed you. They may not be the one that got that next job where they like ma—made you become the startup of that big company. And like all that made it the new product, but they have changed you. And they changed your DNA, the fabric of who you are and how you approach the world. They show up as an integrated part of your own humanity.
But they're not indistinct. They're often indistinguishable from this moment of like, I created these 10 things and I grabbed the success, but failure, the ones that really change us, those favorite ones, are the ones that really change how we approach the world and how we see each other. And I think that's why we landed on my favorite failure. Not because we're trying to fail in pursuit of the thing that we were trying to achieve, but actually can we just focus on the ones who actually changed who we are and how we approach the world?
Tim Fish: That's the thing, right? If you think about that 1200 prototypes before I got to the a hundred million dollar investment, right? It's like they were all wrong. And now this one thing was the right one that led to the thing, right? When in fact that's going to keep, they're just going to continue to be learning every minute after that as well.
And if you go back to my tree fort, you know, one of the things that wasn't present when we were building that tree fort was expectations. Right. There was no external expectations. It was just a bunch of us building a fort. And you know, so often I think we jump to the quick assessment of something like, was this thing a success, or was this thing a failure, as if it's this binary continuum. And you introduced me to this idea in the book, right?
When I read it, it was a completely new idea for me. And it just blew me, my hair back, this relationship between expectations and failure. Can you tell me more and tell us more about that?
Laura McBain: Well, yeah. I think one of the things that we learned is like, we predict or perceive an event based on our own expectations of how it's going to go out. When we're doing something important, whether it's, you know, building a tree fort or building something else in the world, we have this like, I think a deep, desperate connection to ensure that it goes well. We actually visualize often, or we pre-predict, like, it's got to look this way. It's got to sound this way. It's got to go this way. And I think in that, sometimes, we set ourselves not only up for like, missing expectations or setting ourselves with these expectations that if I don't do this one thing, I'm failing to meet expectations. And I think the challenge in that is that we actually miss the learning.
We actually miss the joy of doing the thing, and set ourselves up for just like, I got to do the expectation without actually sitting with, like, what is this experience? What am I learning from this experience? We literally jump to the point, well, I did this project. It failed, it didn't meet the expectations, without actually like looking back and saying, wow, there was actually a lot of interesting learning and stuff that I could've never predicted, but my expectations basically glossed over or, or actually hid all the learning that actually did happen. And I think part of like releasing expectations around learning, and that's not to say we don't have high standards, right? They're not separate, but I think really leaning into how can we let go of like, the predictive outcomes of how things are supposed to happen or supposed to be at the very end, and allow ourselves to actually look back and say, what did we really learn?
What surprised us? What actually had nothing to do with the—that actually, we couldn't even imagine? That is actually the true part of the learning process that I think we've uncovered in some of the book.
Tim Fish: Earlier this season, we had a great conversation with Dr. Denise Pope, your colleague at Stanford. And we talked a lot about sort of the, it's 20 years since she published Doing School.
And I've always wondered that, that was another book that blew my hair back, back in the day. And it made me think about like, what, what are the conditions? What creates this model, where we end up feeling like we're doing school? And I think this notion of these external expectations, particularly grades and the way grades work, has an awful lot to do with that.
And I'm thinking, also, about parents. And I'm thinking about how parents can help their children to grow, if they understand and think about failure and expectations in slightly different ways. And I'm wondering from your learning in the book, your fav—the favorite stories, I love the way the book comes together.
Do you have any suggestions or thoughts for parents about how you talk to your children about grades in school?
Laura McBain: I think it's important to name, when we think about expectations in schools, you started in the first, in the beginning of this podcast, about where expectations come from, from an industrial model.
Like that's where that comes from. I am levering and I am filtering out people as we go. That's where that comes from. They're not disconnected. Grades are a way to evaluate, to judge and to filter young people into predictive paths. Straight up, that comes from an industrial model. That's what that was trying to do all the time.
And so I think part of that is understanding the history of what you mentioned earlier in this podcast. Like that was what, that was designed to do that.
Tim Fish: The machine, right?
Laura McBain: The machine.
Tim Fish: What it was created to do.
Laura McBain: That's exactly what it was created to do.
And I think part of that is recognizing that. And I think also, and I think we talk about this in the book too, is like, you know, thinking about you know, from a very deep perspective, if the system was designed to do that, then recognizing oh, this actually wasn't designed for the young people of today. I mean, that's the first thing to remember, and then think about who that was designed for in particular, which is around, you know, particularly, I would say like, cultures in which like our young people of color have actually been systemically, not designed for. Like to remember that those expectations were actually designed, not for them or with them, and actually against them.
And so like, recognizing that I think is really important. And then I think, you know, with respect to parents, like giving into, you know, having the conversations about grades is a different question.
Which is not what grade did you get, but like, what did you learn that surprised you? What did you learn that, like, challenged you? How did you feel about what you learned? What were you proud of? Those are the, like, I would say unpredictable questions, or things that you actually can't get from a grade, because I think part of the learning process around failure is actually trying to distill out the pieces that we don't necessarily can predict or let alone, that can come up from a grade.
And I think that is part of this conversation about like, can we understand where the system comes from and really see it and call it out, first and foremost, and then ask the question of like, well, yeah, you might've gotten a D, but what part were you proud of? What part actually lit you up? What made you ask more questions? What made you curious?
I think those are the types of questions that parents can start diving into knowing that the system is rigged. It is. So if we know that, then what kind of questions about curiosity, confidence, can we actually get from when we start asking our young people about what they learned and what surprised them?
Tim Fish: I love the way your coauthor, Ron Beghetto, talks about the notion of learning. And I think it's so connected to what you just said. That learning always involves an unexpected element, right?
That if the unexpected doesn't exist, that no learning occurs. That learning is all about stepping from the expected to the unexpected. That notion of being willing, and given the space to, and the agency to, step into the unknown, right. That's where learning exists. And it just amazes me because I think if we took that point of view, how does our design in school create the conditions for students to step into the unexpected?
Laura McBain: Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, and this is like a simple thing, it's like so much of schools right now is like, you know, encouraging young people to master content standards. And if you think about that, all that's expected. I can Google that. There's actually like, there's nothing really expected or unexpected about that.
Like they're on the website, you can research it. Students have textbooks that give them the answers. They can Google the answers. Like there's nationally, no new content that they're actually trying to learn, essentially, that's not actually already out there. They're expected. This is why we see massive cheating scandals. We see students disengaging in textbooks. We see, like, people looking up the answers in the back of the book, because they're expecting the right answer. And that right answer already exists. The answer's already there. So there's nothing, there's no new learning there. And I think the thing that I've seen, I think with respect to schools that are doing this, yes, examples of High Tech High, some great examples in your network of schools, that are really thinking about how young people and actually can do work, really, whether it's a design challenge that going into the community, you know, creating a product or a service that didn't exist before, creating art pieces, creating original writing, that actually allows them to challenge their own assumptions about content and about the world.
And so you know, those could exist in Socratic seminars, right. They can exist in like writing new poems, something that taps into something about themselves that they actually didn't know before. I'll give you an example. I remember this was a beautiful exhibition that I went to, you know, actually in, I think it was in Iowa. And they were doing this exhibition and a young person was doing a project on basically looking at different perspectives around religion, gender, sexuality, et cetera. And this young person came from a very conservative family. And his family was like, not really comfortable with this young person doing this type of project.
And I went up to this young person. I said, what about this? And they said, you know, it was really hard at first. But I have shifted my perspective about what this work and what this is supposed to look like in the world. It wasn't that he was giving me stats. He wasn't like he was giving me history. He wasn't telling me this is what happened when. He was saying, my perspective about how I treat people and folks who are coming from a different background than I do has shifted. And that's the unexpected moment. That's the type of transformative learning, you know, that we're trying to get to when we think about like, really helping young people think about, you know, unexpected learning moments. That was a completely unexpected outcome that wouldn't have come, right, had this vehicle or structure not been created for this young person to take on a topic that was uncomfortable for them.
Tim Fish: One of the things that I've been doing, and I would, I would, you know, ask the folks who are listening to maybe do the same thing. One of the things I've done sometimes when I work with, with groups of faculty and staff is to say, all right, squeeze your whole educational philosophy down to a tweet. Right? So if you could get everything you think in a tweet, what would it look like?
And for me, one of the, mine, and it changes all the time, but it's: A diverse community of learners doing meaningful work that matters. And maybe I would adapt it, but I think it gets at this notion of sort of unlocking the unexpected and unlocking and designing for learning.
And so in your work, you were talking about, in your reflection in one of your great stories in the book, you talk about, you know, encouraging all of us to start with a simple question. When reflecting with a student or a colleague or a family member, you talk about this question of how did that feel?
Right. I just found that such a powerful question. And how do you see it playing out? How could it impact classrooms and learning environments?
Laura McBain: That's a great question. I think part of it, and now I'll start with one thing about your question about like, how do we make this happen more often in schools? And I think there's two answers to your question. One is like, how do we, as educators, take on unexpected experiences?
Because I do think first and foremost, if we want our students to experience it, when is the last time we put down the textbook and actually tried to engage in content that we actually don't know a lot? The educational system that we're design, that we live in, actually, doesn't actually encourage that. We're saying, teach the content and get better and better at teaching the same thing over and over and over again.
So I think part of the through-line as educators is we need to allow ourselves to explore content that we don't understand. And I think that goes to the question of how does that feel for myself? And I will tell you, when we asked that question, and we've done this a lot at the Stanford d.school, it's fascinating.
I think when we ask, how does that feel, it reveals a couple of things. One, it reveals the moments of like, cognitive overload, like first and foremost, like that was confusing. I didn't get it. So you're scaffolding first and foremost, like are my students actually understanding? So we're checking for understanding. As opposed to, did I get this, versus like, did you understand this, already assumes knowledge acquisition, and also is a judgment, right? About whether I'm learning or not. Versus how did that feel? Allows me to answer in a lot of different ways, was I was confused, which might get to scaffolding and cognitive understanding. I might have say, I was excited, which then it looks at a question and like engagement, like, oh, that's interesting. You know, it made me curious. Well, then there's an opportunity, there's an opening for what that looks like. Right. Or I might say, you know, how did that feel? I was like, well, I felt like it was discomforting, then I'm realizing that I'm actually on a learning edge there. Right? So that question is an expansive question to not just look at like, did I feel excited, it allows us to do a lot of different things. But then it also, you know, from an equity perspective, when I think about young people in the classroom, you know, we ask this question about what engagement looks like, are you engaged?
That's a binary question. If I ask, how do I feel? And if a young person said, "I'm bored, well that was boring," they—they're telling me they're disengaged. How does, so that's truth right there, versus are you engaged ? you—you can notice those things. And I think that question allows us to see a lot of different parallel possibilities in a classroom.
While one person might be curious, another person might be overwhelmed. And that is an opening, if you will, to see where do I, in this content or next project, create space, whether to provide more scaffolding, to actually lean into an area that's actually more interesting for young people, or to actually think about, well, this just really sucks. And none of the students like this, so we should probably just skip it. And those—that's the opening as a design question, because then we see, I think the thing that's, I think really important for me and I think for all educators around this podcast, is that like, learning is an evocative experience.
You cannot, I don't believe you can separate content from emotions. We are emotional human beings. So the idea that feeling and learning are actually quite separate, if I don't feel a lot of how I'm learning, is actually not true. We get excited. Tim and I—you've been on a lot of calls and you and I get really excited. We get really passionate. We're laughing. We're alert. That's an a, that's an emotion. And so how do we, actually, we have a space in our classrooms to just have students express their emotions, not just from a mental health perspective, which is important, but also how do they feel about the content they're learning?
What's lighting them up, what's not, what's confusing. Those allow us to tap in and also allow us to structure, you know, experiences slightly differently.
Tim Fish: Yeah. You know, it, it's this idea of, when we can't be in that authentic space, right. When I love so much about why as well is it, it says to me, I'm interested in you. Right. When I say, as I did many times as a teacher, did you get that? How do you, how many people feel good about the content? Right? Raise your hand, you know, the five finger thing, right?
Are you a one, are you a two or three? How much did you get it? Right. All kind of helpful, but it was always about the content. Again, the content was in the center. When I ask why, how do you feel? How did it make you feel? I'm putting you in the center.
Laura McBain: That's right. Absolutely.
Tim Fish: And I think that's, you know, you talk about this idea in the book about, you know, these characteristics of failure and these stories of failure.
And one of them talks about the idea of how failure can often make us feel frozen. Or feeling frozen can often lead to a feeling of failure. And I love the way you all talk about this idea that we can be heaters in people's lives.
Laura McBain: Yeah.
Tim Fish: To help them warm when they feel frozen. And I thought, wow. When I am in, in classrooms and I've been hearing about what people have been doing during the pandemic, I've been so inspired by how teachers and educators have been continuing to serve as being warmers for students who are feeling very frozen.
Laura McBain: I love that.
Tim Fish: And I think about my own educational experience and I was terrified to read aloud in school. Terrified.
Laura McBain: Me too.
Tim Fish: I mean, it was like, and I remember like third grade, fourth grade, and you'd be reading a book and they would never tell you who they're going to call on. And I think it was some control mechanism to like, make sure that everybody was following along and no one was dawdling, playing with a stick in their desk or something.
And like, it was incredible to me how there was no learning going on because I was frozen.
Laura McBain: Me too. Me too.
Tim Fish: And then my fifth grade teacher, she changed all that. She said like, "Hey, here's how we're going to do it." And she would have sections. And she'd say, if you want to read one, just raise your hand and I'll assign—and we'll assign you that section. Took a couple of minutes, but she would go through it. And then she came to me and she said, "Tim, you should do this. You should read one." Now granted, did I pre-read it? Did I miss everything else everyone was reading cause I was pre-reading my section 30 times? But she helped me take that step into the unexpected.
Laura McBain: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Fish: She understood me. And, and I'm wondering about that notion of when you've seen, or how you have experienced teachers in your own life or folks creating the warmers. I just love that concept.
Laura McBain: I love that. And I think this is a really, I mean, it's, this is a lot of times (unintelligible), and I had a similar experience too, as someone who had an auditory processing disorder, I would get the section and I'd be like, re-reading it 12 billion times just to get it right. Because I was like, oh my God, I'm going to mispronounce the word.
And I still do. And yet you just kind of get over it as we get older. But exactly know that feeling. But yeah, I mean, I remember I was working at a school in Chicago, actually. This is in the south side of Chicago in Pilsen, and students had written original stories, published books, actually. And these are young people, you know pretty, you know, I would say challenging school in the sense of like, you know, probably 98% low income. You know, a lot of homelessness, a lot. I mean, they had people that were walking to and from the bus stop for safe passage, which is via gangs and things like that. A lot of violent stories. And I remember one, this did not, I'm just thinking about this now as you're bringing your story up, but you know, there was, and it wasn't actually, I mean, it was the teacher, but it was also the students. It's a communal thing.
Right. But a young person was getting up and reading their story and just like that, the student, just like you and I did, kind of got frozen. They kind of stopped and they're just like, Ooh. And they had their picture in their hand or their writing in their hands and they're looking at it and they're just kind of like staying there, looking at it and looking at it.
And you know, a couple of students, you know, I won't say their names, but said, you got this. They're like, you do, you can do this, you can do this. Like you got this. And that moment, those little, I would say those are human moments. Where like, they started clapping and cheering. I've seen that in classrooms, in places where like, people are doing hard work that actually requires respect. Original work that actually makes you feel vulnerable and actually allows—and, and when you've done that type of work in a classroom where everyone has actually putting their content on the line, their own creations on the line, it is almost impossible not to step up for each other because you know that work matters to them, because it matters to you.
And so I've seen that in classrooms, I've seen that in, you know, onstage, you know, I've seen them in all these different situations where like, the community notices someone feeling like a moment of frozen or they're struggling. And it crushes me when I go into classrooms where you see the struggle, you see the head on the desk or you see people disengaging. And the first reaction is, let me discipline you. You got to sit down, versus hey, how do I care for you in this moment? Cause I think you're struggling. I think you're having a moment of failure. You're really struggling here. And how do we as human beings or as educators, just pause and say, whoa, like, okay, let me be with you in this moment.
Do you need to breathe? Do you need to cheer? Do you need a clap? What do you need right now, to move through this moment of struggle or this moment that you're perceiving as failure? And as you said, when we do that, when we're able to show up in our humanity with our students, those are the moments that you get to talk about, that we get to talk about as adults that we look back on and say, oh, this person showed up for me in a moment where I was feeling alone.
And I think that was probably one of the insights of failure is that like, failure can feel very isolating. And how do we as educators actually remove those icicles of isolation, I think that we talked about in the book, and actually create these warming environments where like, it's okay to like mess up your paragraph and like, you know, mess up on stage. And because that's you know, these aren't, we're not, this is just, these are learning moments, right.
That's it, it's a learning. And there's, there's not that high stakes, you know, it's just a moment of learning.
Tim Fish: And we make things such high stakes. Right? We make the quiz, you know, concept. It makes me think back at school now, right? The concept of a pop quiz. What was that? Right? Kids are walking in the room and you're like, pop quiz. And the kids are like “What?” And like all of a sudden, everybody freezes, right? Everybody's like, it's just, it makes it, you know, it, you and Ron talk about in the book, one of the most power—you say in one of those powerful messages of the book is this idea that success and failure are not solo acts.
Laura McBain: No.
Tim Fish: They're communal.
Laura McBain: Yeah.
Tim Fish: That, that we have the opportunity to support each other. Or not, right? To, to how we interact with the student whose head is on the desk is a, is an incredibly powerful moment. To think about sort of what, what's the condition in their lives. What are they going through? What caused them to feel that way?
Right. You know, it, it also gets back for me on my own journey as a teacher. And I think if you were to ask me, what was my philosophy, back to the tweet, right. I think my first year teaching, six months in teaching fourth grade, if you had said, what's your philosophy of teaching, it would have been, if I'm talking, they must be learning.
I think that was my, I think that was, I think that was my philosophy of education. The more I talk, the more they learn. And I'm curious about this idea about how adults in the community, also. Their success as educators is—and their fit—feeling of failure as educators, particularly in this moment, what we've been through the last few years, is not a communal act. It's not a solo—how can we support each other? And what have you, what are some things you've seen about adults supporting each other in this, in this incredibly difficult time?
Laura McBain: I mean, I think it's like moments like this, where people get to come in and share stories. I mean, I think, I think one of the things that we've learned in the book, and I think in this past year that I think has probably been the most insightful moment, and I think perhaps the most important moment of all the things, is holding this power of connection or reconnection.
And it's twofold. Like part of it is celebrating the success and the persistence that we actually went through. It's really easy to say we did this. And like, let's take a moment. Like, oh my God. In literally like two days, like 90% of teachers became a tech teacher overnight, like overnight. Overnight, they became the tech teacher.
Like that is like, massive and like…
Tim Fish: It wasn't just a tech teacher, but they were like caring for people through tech, which is super hard to do.
Laura McBain: So crazy! Like, and I, and as someone who's done a lot of work with technology adoption, you think about that. You and I have done that. We're like, oh my God, like everyone is on Zoom and everyone's doing Google. And we probably spent 20 years trying to get people to try a new app and overnight they're like doing it.
So there's something I think, really beautiful in celebrating those successes, those moments of persistence and transformation. And I think with respect to, you know, going back to failure, I think one of the things that, you know, as educators, is more often than not, I think one of the things that I think we learned in this book and in also answering to your question, I think the more that we actually share stories of failure, the more connected we become.
And I think oftentimes we're so used to hearing stories of success on stage, because they lighten us up. But I think that like, one of the things that I think if we're going to actually, and I don't mean to say this like a downer and a negative, you know, like, oh, if we’re all kind of not doing well. But I also think that like, honoring our struggle and honoring these moments of failure allows a lot. It actually allows for our full selves to show up, and not just like the best version of myself. Like I persevered and I got through this and I'm unscathed and here I am. I think it actually opens ourselves up to like seeing our full stories of actually opening it up to each other. Like, oh, I didn't realize that was really hard for you. I struggle with that too. Oh, my students didn't show up on zoom either. What did you do? Like those moments where we really were challenged, I think allows us for collective learning.
Tim Fish: Yup. You know, it's funny. Dr. Kevin Costa, who's a drama teacher and director of innovation learning at McDonogh School where I worked before coming to NAIS. He's a phenomenal director of plays and improv and lots of things. And he used to always say his favorite part of the journey was rehearsal.
Laura McBain: Hmm.
Tim Fish: And he would say, I wish people could come and watch rehearsal. We all come and watch the final production. Right. When it's all buttoned up. But he said, what if folks could come in, because that's where the learning's happening. Like, that's the good stuff.
Laura McBain: Yes. A hundred percent.
Tim Fish: And it's like in that notion of, you know, and he would always sit in the back during the performance. Right. Because then it's on, it's just, it's ready to roll. And I just think about that concept being so powerful, you know, and it leads me to this idea that you also explore in the book, this idea that our perception of failure is connected to our disposition. And like, how we can develop tools for navigating feelings of failure.
And one of the things that you all sort of bring in and really, really got me thinking was this idea of like, persistence. Words like persistence, grit, resilience, right? These are words like, you know, just stick with it and get over it. Like, and sometimes you just gotta say, wait a minute, should I even be doing this? Like, is this something that like, am I supposed to persist in this? And you bring in the word curiosity as that's connected to those words and others, and curiosity's role in our own disposition around failure. Just tell me more about that, because that is so powerful.
Laura McBain: It was like an interesting insight, I think, as we're having this conversation out of the book and it was like, I was thinking back to like, you know, my own teaching days actually. And I would say like Mondays, every Monday, at the school that I taught at, we would do these like grammar workbooks. Like where, you know, students would work through it. I didn't really teach, it was like a 45 minute period or something, but I would dedicate Mondays to like, you all do the grammar workbooks on Monday.
Now I will tell you like, those Mondays really weren't that interesting. And, and, and I also had the, probably the biggest moments of discipline. Because the kids were bored, you know, and I think one of the things that I think about with recept—with respect to perception and curiosity around failure or persistence, if you will, is like, are we creating assignments and experiences that are worthy of persistence? That are worthy of unlocking curiosity. You know, we, we tell young people, and I would say not, this is not all subjects, but I think it shows up the most in math, for example. Is that we ask young people to do a whole problem set and just get to the right answer. But where's the curiosity in that? Like why would I, why would I do something over and over and over again, if I wasn't curious about it? If there's, it's not unlocking any, that just feels like torture. So we have to like, start thinking about, like, for me, it's like, what are the moments in our lessons where we can tap into curious? Because I think if we are curious, we will persist. Again, human beings are, are curious people. And so how are we designing lessons, even little ones, that actually allow our curiosity to show up?
And when are we noticing when we're giving, you know, our young people rote exercises that actually stamps curiosity down. And doesn't allow that to thrive? Because you think about like you and I, as adults, if we were asked to do the same thing over and over and over again and persist through it, and it didn't unlock any interest or curiosity in us, you and I would say hell to the no, I'm not doing that. And then we wonder why our young people are disengaged or don't actually, act up in classrooms, or are on discipline. You know, they kind of mess up with the discipline. Their curiosity is being stamped out. And then we get mad at them for actually not doing the thing, but we're asking them to do something that probably could feel like torture, you know?
Tim Fish: Yes. Yeah. It gets to this idea of curiosity. Right? One of my other super favorite books, people should throw it on their pile for the summer is an oldie, but a goodie, An Ethic of Excellence by Ron Berger. Right. Just wow. Got me thinking in a new way. And he talks about this concept of craftsmanship, right.
And how do you create the conditions for craftsmanship to emerge in your classroom? And I think of the work of Jeff Sandefur and Lara Sandefur, who created the Acton Network of schools, right. About 200 schools around the world. And their concept is the educator's role is to step back, and then step back again. To create the conditions where they can con—they can step back and let agency step in. And so it gets me to this notion, right? We started off this conversation with what's the purpose of school. Right? And I'm going to throw you into one that I'm just making up now, but I'm wondering about this idea of what's the purpose of a teacher?
Laura McBain: Yeah. I mean, that's a really great question. I think, you know, thinking about craftsmanship too, you know, and thinking about, I mean, part of being, I think, a teacher in this world right now, is like serving as a mentor, serving as a guide. A river guide, if you will. And really finding those moments where we're navigating content together in the simplest way.
And I think part of that in this world, and I think you would highlight in your story, is like, and we have to get better at that. Is like, noticing, you know where moments of learning are happening, where are there moments where someone like yourself can step up and like, do this thing that you described. And I think the role of the teacher right now is moving away from how do I ensure I make every single one of my students, you know, master these content, but how am I finding more, you know, moments without, without, with my experience with them, where they actually can step up into their brilliance?
And those are unexpected moments. Those aren't often designed right away. We get to unfold them and see them, but it really requires us as educators to really notice who our students are, and really like, look at the mosaic of their identity and say, oh wow, you've got this goal. And they're all unique, which is great. And they're all different. But I think it requires us to really think of ourselves as mentors, as guides to learning because the best teachers are the ones that transform us. The best teachers are the ones that create these containers, where we see more than we could have seen ourselves. Right? And sometimes has nothing to do with like, oh, I learned this thing.
It could be the moment you're like, I just read this paragraph. And now I actually am able to see myself and be braver. Those are the little moments that we remember.
Tim Fish: I love it. You know, it's not, when I say like, what's the role of a teacher? What does it mean to teach? Or what's—there could almost be this assumption like, oh, like the teacher's not important anymore. Right. Which I think is, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Laura McBain: I agree. A hundred percent.
Tim Fish: There's never been a more important time for great educators to be in lives of young people.
Like it, it is so important. And I think we have an opportunity to think about it more broadly. I think we have an opportunity to think about how do we unlock that potential? How do we create those containers? What does it look like to design? You know, one of my last questions for you, cause I could talk to you all day long. This is amazing. Is this notion that you taught me in our first conversation, about what does it mean to be a designer, and who's a designer, and where do you go to get the stamp that you are a designer? Oh, now I'm a designer. Like I went to the d. School, or something. Right. And, and you taught me that we're all designers. It's inherent in it.
Laura McBain: Yeah.
Tim Fish: And I just wonder what, what advice or what thoughts you might give to educators who are listening to this podcast, about design and the role of design and their role in design.
Laura McBain: Educators are designers by default, we design our classrooms, we design lesson plans. We design assessments, we design spaces. Like that's what we do. We don't put the word design on it. We say we teach. So like, we do those things. And I think it's important to recognize the conditions or the structures that we're creating in our classroom. We're intentionally designing something. Sometimes less intentionally than others, but that's okay too. And I think where we go is really thinking of it—and this is not from me, actually, this is from my mentor, Larry Rosenstock, you know, and he really described design as a very much, you know, not about like, how do I make sure I prototype and ideate, but like, I think we're creating something, right.
We think about creating something that didn't exist. There's really simple things. It's like, what am I observing? Right. What am I noticing? What am I going to build? Right. Who am I going to share it with? Right. And then how am I going to reflect on this con—this like concept of like, observation, creation, exhibition, reflection, everybody does that, that has nothing that we can stamp that design. You can stamp it, product design, you can stamp it UX. You can say whatever you want, but like we, as individuals, as humans, are always in the process of taking in data, we're always in the process of creating something. And creating something for others. Right. And then as, as educators, we always are in the process of reflection.
So that like, simple arc, right, of observation and creation, exhibition, reflection. That's not from me, that's from Larry Rosenstock, is a simple thing of how we can all engage in design, right? How we can all be graded, observe—observation, creation, sharing, and reflection. That is not unique to anyone at the d.school, that is not unique to folks at NAIS. Anybody can do that. And anyone, everyone is doing it in their own way. And I think the power that we have as design is, how do we get better at sharing all the different ways people are doing design in their communities and in their classrooms, not so there's just one way to do design, but there is a multiplicity of ways that people can think about themselves as designers.
Tim Fish: We are designers. When I cook dinner, you know, I'm a designer. I mean, I'm bringing a design, I'm making a thing, right. That was, that has never existed before. And sometimes it's good. And sometimes I must say, it's not that good. Laura, I just want to say thank you for spending time with me today in this conversation, it's been such a gift. And I can't wait for your book to get out in the world, because I think it is going to make such a difference for folks to think about, for educators, parents, young people, to think about failure. We all need to think about failure in the way that you're helping us do that. And I just want to say thank you so much for spending time with us on, on New View EDU.
Laura McBain: Thank you so much. It's been such an honor, and I always love talking with you all and, and with you in particular, and I always learn something. So thank you for sharing your stories with me and allowing me to share some of ours.