Bringing Digital Media into the Classroom

Our Willingness To Play And Embrace Chaos As Educators

My tech-savvy 20-year-old daughter pointed me toward this site, and I'm glad she did.

Is it only tech-savvy kids that have the attitude that's it's okay to play and fail? I'm finding that this same attitude serves me well in my teaching.

We educators can't just wing it and hope for the best. Most of the time, that way lies madness... but, if you are ready with Plan B, should things go terribly wrong, embracing a bit of semi-controlled chaos in your classroom can lead to some amazing outcomes for you and your students.

This happened to me just before spring break this year when I had the odd idea that my students should be spending some time doing free-form scientific inquiry by building marble runs.

This idea came about after we watched numerous "Rube Goldberg machine" videos on YouTube. They just couldn't seem to get enough of them. Their enthusiasm was palpable, and they need to BUILD!

See what happened in my classroom by going to YouTube, searching for my video page at tomstermiles51, and finding the "Before We Left For Spring Break" movie.

My feeling is that most of my colleagues are not comfortable unless everything in their classrooms is very controlled.

Another piece of recommended viewing would be to google TEDTalks: Shekar Kapur. He gives a very inspiring talk about how he embraces chaos in his work as a film director.

Playful chaos can work for you in the classroom, but have Plan B ready to go.

Tags: YouTube

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Parker on June 16, 2010 at 12:30pm

Tom--I uploaded your video to the site but you should also add the Ted talk you referred to above to our video section.

I also see teachers who do not like to embrace chaos but find that they are open to this mindset once they understand how inquiry-based and problem-solving projects can lead to deep participatory learning. What do you think works well when talking to teachers about these issues?

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Permalink Reply by Dave Laurice on August 12, 2010 at 9:29am

Interesting observation Tom.
My experience, having most of my friends in the Film or Tech, or Art industries has been that the ones who do embrace "unique" methods of problem solving a. learned it somewhere and b. tend to work a lot more often. I would not know if the same is true for medical professionals or lawyers, but there is certainly a job market that has a demand for these kinds of thinkers.
I personally love the idea of scrapping everything for a few days problem solving. Failure, while it does happen, has always been something that led to further learning from my perspective. It never occurred to me how little modeling for this we have in schools.
Some other great resources that will get your techy kids frothing:
strandbeest a series of organic art creations that are made from cardboard and the like, are HUGE and move by wind.
MAKE Magazine I call this the science side of "Burning Man"- a great publication full of DIY projects that are always really cool.
And, not sure of your location, but The Great Handcar Regatta started out as an idea about how fun it would be to race home made vehicles on old rail tracks. It has now turned into a huge event and is a great site to see. At the risk of sounding redundant, the is "Burning Man for families". Video here...also reminiscent of the Kinetic Sculpture races in Ferndale.