The road to good work is an imperfect road--it's a road of approximations as we get closer to our goals and vision.
The way a baby learns to walk is a great example of the way we all learn--the wobbly gate that eventually turns into easy running or walking. Bill Brennan clearly illustrated that with the wonderful movie clip of his child learning to walk during his terrific session at Educon 2.6.
"Don't let perfect get in the way of good," a quote attributed to Voltaire, are words we need to be mindful of in education.
That's important for teachers and students to understand in this new age of learning, an age of approximations.
I was reminded of that today when students created wonderful math films. There are imperfect moments in those films including definitions that might be close, but not exact, or an image that might be a bit off in terms of an exact model. I could have slowed down the process, but with students integrating so much all at once to synthesize the concept, images, music, and words together with tremendous engagement, I didn't correct every little bit. Yet I did help them change the big errors in content, the errors that would impact their unit learning.
Often some are afraid to share their ideas, work, or effort due to fear of imperfection, and we all lose out on their perspective and originality because of this. None of us have all the answers.
Yet there are some with great expertise in many fields, and that's to be respected and honored. There is also error that is never acceptable, and we all need a shortlist of those errors in our mind so that we thoughtfully steer clear of those directions.
In all, as educators, particularly educators of young children, we often need to embrace and celebrate the approximations in the same ways we cheer, clap, and smile as a baby takes her first steps. Good learning is our aim. Sometimes it will be perfect, but most of the time good learning will be made up of lots of approximations until students hit a mark. Then it will be time for a new set of approximations, and another learning mountain to climb.
