Category: Teacher Quote of the Week

Teach & Serve 

No. 20 * December 15, 2015

THE NEXT TEACH & SERVE WILL BE PUBLISHED ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2016.

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Related Content from And There Came A Day:

• Teach & Serve No. 19 – “You’re All Star Cast”
• Teach & Serve No. 18 – “Do the Undone”
• Teach & Serve No. 17 – “Giving Thanks for Our Own Gifts”
• Teach & Serve No. 16 – “The Networked Reality”

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DO OR DO NOT… WAIT, ISN’T THERE A TRY?

There’s got to be a “try.”

Unless you live under a rock on the forest moon of Endor (or you’ve intentionally willed yourself to be unaware of these sorts of things), you know that Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters world-wide this week. It’s certain to be a hit with movie goers of all ages, shapes and sizes. It’s likely to be a global phenomenon and I am very much okay with that. Though I truly have tried to keep myself blissfully ignorant of what actually happens in the movie until I see it (preview showing on Thursday 12.17, thank you very much!), I can make a few educated guesses:

It will be full of characters drawn in broad, moral strokes.

Good and evil will be easily identified.

Heroes will lose; heroes will win.

Lines from the movie will be quoted for years to come (this has already started “it’s all true” and “Chewie, we’re home” being two of the tastiest thus far).

Again, I am very good with all of this, especially the quotes which will become part of our culture. Lines from the Star Wars movies have been in our collective consciousness since George Lucas first unspooled A New Hope in 1977 (it was only called “Star Wars” back then, but we won’t go into that kind of geeky minutiae). Most of the lines we volley back-and-forth to each other are iconic, very cool and fun to wrap our heads and tongues around.

But… but, there is one that kind of bothers me as an educator. I understand the point that is being made by the speaker of the quote, and it is, perhaps, the right point in the moment, but I would be very leery of any educator who made this particular quote the cornerstone of her or his educational philosophy.

“Do, or do not, there is no try” says Yoda to a despondent Luke Skywalker. Luke has been challenged by Yoda to use the Force to lift Luke’s X-Wing fighter from out of the Dagobah swamp where it crash landed. Luke responds: “I’ll give it a try” which brings on Yoda’s admonition.

So, yes, in this context, I get it. Hey, Luke, don’t just give it a little effort. Be all in or all out. Sure. Yes. Right. Check. In this context, I get it.

However in the context of the work we do with students in classrooms and with our colleagues on our staffs, isn’t there an awful lot of room for “try”? Isn’t that what we want students to do when they are confronted by new possibilities? Don’t we want them to try things out? Don’t we want our students to fearlessly attempt new things precisely because we’ve created environments wherein they are safe to try and fail?

Don’t our colleagues who are early experimenters with new technology or who take on a new mode of instruction or attempt a new kinds of simulation with their students sometimes impress us as much with their failures and their learnings from those failures as they do with their inevitable successes? What if Yoda was there telling them not to try?

C’mon, Yoda! Give us a little space to learn from trying, from failing.

Yoda is pretty hard on Luke and perhaps he has to be as Luke is “our last hope,” but cut the kid a little slack, right? Do you grade on the curve, Professor Yoda, or is it all pass/fail with you. Sure, I get it, it’s going to be pass/fail when Luke gets his hand cut off by Darth Vader and, yes, I know you’ve been training Jedi for 800 years… but, as an educator, perhaps you might take a page from Obi Wan Kenobi’s book. Obi Wan encourages Luke to try, knowing that he will likely, on his first attempts, fail. Obi Wan creates an environment for Luke where it’s okay to fail and to learn from the failure.

Those are the teachers and administrators I want around me: those who set up environments where it’s okay to explore, to fail, to learn and to grow. I want the teachers and administrators who encourage risk, who ask for creativity, who allow students and colleagues to challenge barriers. These are the teachers and administrators who inspire others to be better and to grow.

Of course, if Yoda wanted to join my staff, I’d let him because, hey, he’s Yoda!