Musing About Learning… and Hammers

I was recently taking an online professional development workshop. As part of the course, we were asked to share our thoughts about student learning. Since the end of summer is nearing, teachers are putting away their sunscreen and dusting off their lesson plans. So I thought I would share my little musing about learning.

Students learn by doing: students learn by failing.

Or to put it another way, a heuristic approach to learning provides opportunities for students to fail constructively.

I frequently create learning opportunities for students around the boos boos they tend to make in whatever subject I am teaching. They are shocked. I am not. (Having taught more than a minute, I have a list of recurring boos boos that students make.) Then I help them find the solution.

I was first introduced to this approach by my Granddaddy Burton. He was not and educator, but he intuitively knew a thing or two about how to drive a lesson home.

I recall when I was about ten years old. He and I were in what he called the shop room. It contained numerous power tools, such as a table saw and a bandsaw and a wood lathe and such. Lots of things were built or repaired there over the years. On this occasion, he was working on some project at his workbench. I was nearby on the floor struggling to remove a bent nail from a board.

I hooked the claws of the hammer on the nail and pulled with all my might, handle end of the hammer facing me. And then it happened! The hammer slipped loose from the nail, and then end of the handle came flying toward me, hitting me square on the top of my head.

My grandfather looked at me and calmly said, “I knew that was going to happen.”

I loved my granddaddy. In fact, I adored him. But in that moment, all I could think was “then why did you let me do it?”

He then took my hammer and a small block of wood. Using the block of wood as a fulcrum, he effortlessly removed the nail.

I was amazed and appalled. Couldn’t he have just shown me without having me banging my brain with a hammer? Maybe. But that certainly was what we educators refer to as a teachable moment. And it must have worked. Here I am more than half a century later, and I still recall this lesson. And I also still pull nails with a little block of wood as a fulcrum. His approach, clearly a heuristic if painful approach, worked.

Sans the hammer and headache, I try to create similar opportunities for students to learn from their own mistakes. If you have taken one of my classes, you can attest to this.

So, my fellow educators, for what it is worth here is my contribution to your back-to-school preparation. Now create some learning moments of your own by letting your students fail. (Just don’t use hammers.)