Innovation and Failure

An interesting essay appeared in yesterday's The Wall Street Journal, entitled "Educating the next Steve Jobs," by Tony Wagner. Its purpose is to answer "how schools can teach innovation."

Mr. Wagner begins by asserting "that young Americans [today] learn how to innovate most often despite their schooling--not because of it." He goes on to describe a nexus of flaws in how modern education is delivered, which might be summarized in short as: the penalization of failure; the pressure to specialize; the passivity of most educational experiences; and an emphasis on grades rather than creating things. Following an exposition of each flaw, Mr. Wagner offers a possible solution to each: allow trial and error ("without [it], there is no innovation); emphasize inter-disciplinary learning; make class-work more "hands-on"; and ditch grades for some new method of assessment, such as a portfolio.

I believe Mr. Wagner makes some interesting points. The issue of penalizing failure is perhaps the most important. It's rarely helpful in my experience, though it does seem to motivate some people to be more diligent with their class-work. This benefit comes at a cost, however, in that it creates scenarios in which students may learn a lot but have only poor marks to show for it. Scenarios like this could make students more risk-averse even in situations where little is at stake, and much may be gained. Failure is important for learning, perhaps even essential; why penalize it? We might be better served developing systematic ways for teaching young people to use failure more constructively. Let's empower students to endure and learn from mistakes, not fear them. 

Mr. Wagner's other points are also worth considering, but grappling with the issue of failure is arguably the most essential. As we discovered in an earlier post, even when they attended some of the most hands-on and rigorous private schools available today, students who could learn from failure (as opposed to those with the highest grades) out-performed everyone else. Perhaps this, as well as Mr. Wagner's others points, are worth considering.

Happy Saturday, friends :)

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