Taking Risks: What About Me?

Often when I think about taking risks, I'm referring to my students. I think about what that means for them. There is a fair amount of anxiety that comes with taking risks, including the negative feelings they get when they take a risk and fail.

Let's face it. Nobody likes to fail. It doesn't feel good. As an adult I'd like to think that I've developed enough coping skills that, should I decide to take a risk, I could deal with it. But the reality is I'm not entirely sure how many more risks I actually take than my students.  And in the past, if I had tried somethig different, I certainly didn't tell them about it. I just tried a new "whatever-it-was", and pretended like it went off without a hitch-ESPECIALLY if it didn't.  Then I would scrape over the lesson and try to figure out where to make improvements and then maybe, if I didn't feel like a complete failure, would give it another go...in secret...again. 

Obviously there's a lot wrong with this situation, but the worst part of the whole thing is that I had created a double standard. I wanted to present perfection on all of the things that I did in the classroom, but wanted my students to push through (and even rejoice in) the creative process all out in the open. I wanted them to try something, fail, analyze their failure, talk about it, and try again. I know...(insert rolling-eyes emoticon here.). 

All that said I feel like I'm on a new path-a path to trying, failing and sharing.  This year I decided to tell my students about every time I attended a PD. When I returned to class I told them about what I learned, what I was excited about trying with them and why. In one case, I decided to try a "math talk" right away. 

I explained to students what it was, how it worked and how it was supposed to help them, and after outlining the expectations, we went for it. The students were really responsive to the process, and when we were all done, we talked about how we all did. We found that:

-it was fun to talk about how we used math processes

-it was hard to slow our brains down to talk about how we thought about numbers

-we exceeded the 15 minute time limit

-we needed to work on letting people share their ideas without interrupting

-we needed to be brave and share

-we needed to understand that the wrong answer taught us as much or more than the right one. 

After we made the list, I told the students that I had to confess I was very nervous and scared to try a number talk with them. I didn't know how it would go. I didn't prepare much and so was worried it would all fall apart. I was scared they wouldn't enjoy doing it. I was scared they'd be too scared to share.  Then one of my students said how silly it was to worry about all that stuff-I was just trying something. 

In that moment I realized they might have a double standard too, or at least we have an understanding that failure is ok as long as it's not us doing the failing. 

Our class ended up having a huge conversation about times we tried something, and failed (a lot of bike riding examples here!).  But for the most part, it seemed like my students got it-failing teaches us a lot, and if we fail, at least we know what not to do. 

We developed a language in our class around failing. A mistake was our brain growing, and that mistake could help everyone. I'm developing a very legitimate poker face, tone in my voice and neutral attitude because even the most subtle body language can crush the  drive to try in a student. 

I'm also having to act like I just don't know. There's a lot of "What do you mean?", "I don't understand.", "Can you show me?", "What do you think?", and "Well, have you tried yet?" coming out of my mouth.  This. Is. Very. Hard. For. Me.  I just want them to "get it"-whatever "it" is and I want them to feel good about themselves and have confidence and feel like they are smart but all that greatness is just undermined if I TELL THEM A WAY TO GET THE ANSWERS THEY WANT. 

I'm not doing that great.  I've got a long way to go. My students don't get to explore, play and fail as much as they need to, and I realize that the more opportunities I give them to do those things, the more I'm taking risks too. I can't control everything in an environment like that. I don't necessarily drive the learning or lessons that are taught. I have to be VERY flexible in planning and preparation, and it might even be a lot of "flying by the seat of my pants". And still, I see value. 

There have been lots of road blocks, student anxiety being in the top.  We often don't think 8 year olds are afraid of much or even worry about failure, but they've already got a pile of experience in understanding how school works and how to survive:  Get the right answer (of which there is usually only one) and present it-it's easy. Except that it isn't easy to get and present the right answer if they're doing the work to find it.

Now I'm left with this:

How do I move forward?  Where do I start?  How do I start?  When do I start?  How do I cover everything?  What will my assessment look like?  What if I don't cover everything?  Is that even an option in my learning?  How much am I actually allowed to fail professionally?  Is there any slack?  How much?  How do I get over this and jump in? 

Man, oh man. This is scary.