Learning to Fly

As we enter this new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903.  Most of us have seen pictures and primative video of this and other early flights.  This first flight took all of 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.  By all standards of what we know is possible, this flight was an embarrassment.

However, we don’t look at this (or any other new frontier event) this way.  We see these brothers as willing to try something new and willing to fail repeatedly before a limited success.  Without those who try and fail, no one succeeds.

I think it is the same way with educational technology.  This is a transitional period in the history of education.  The brave souls who try new programs and techniques often fail, and often count succcesses by the inch, rather than by the mile.  This is very hard for educators.  We don’t like to fail or to be less than good, particularly in front of the stduents.

No one questions the value of the Wright brothers’ “pathetic” achievement.  Most of the field of aeronautics today can trace itself to this event. And (and this is probably the most important and) people the field grew as much through analysis of the mistakes made as copying what was done.

So perhaps we are the “mistake makers” who will pave the way for our students to soar.  Attempts in this new field are valuable when they succeed and when they define the boundaries of what won’t work.  Someday our students will say, “I remember how badly he did that…it would be so much better to do it this way.”

To use one other analogy, in Medieval times (not the restaurant), those who began building a cathedral knew that they, their children, and grandchildren would be dead before the edifice was completed.  In the same way we have to keep working on this new building, secure in the knowledge that we may not see it, but we will have been a part of it.