Fail Faster. It’s difficult, but necessary.

I’m working on a local regional project called Cloud School. The idea is that we offer on-line courses for kids that may want extension help in some subjects (Maths and Chemistry) or a chance to some interest based learning (Visual Design and Games Design) that their school doesn’t offer.

I’m delivering on the Games Design course. I was approached by the organising team to run a course of my choice, and I chose games. I’m not an expert in designing games by any means (or even playing them) but I see it as an opportunity for me to learn about what I consider to be two educational directions for the future – learning about games in an on-line classroom environment.

I’ll talk about the tools I use to facilitate the class in a future post. But I want to share a video that has got me thinking both as a teacher and as a learner. Failing Faster is key to the work that I do.

Failing is hard to do – especially for teachers that (inwardly) expect to be right and are expected (externally) have all the answers as their professional responsibility. But fear of failure holds us back, and being prepared to try, fail and try again is crucial in game design, being an educator, trying to pass a motorcycle license test – indeed, life in general.

Instilling this idea that failure is a normal part of learning should be a construct built into pre- service teachers. Failure is associated with a loss of control – and pre-service teachers are still told that loss of control is bad. Balancing classroom management with failure should be the goal. They are not mutually exclusive.

How do you promote the idea of “failing faster” in your classes?