You Never Run Out of Knowledge, Just Luck
You Never Run Out of Knowledge, Just Luck
I had a great dat today at The PAST Foundation. We hosted a "Maker Mania" event for the launch of the 2022 Summer Season. We had so many amazing guests in at the PAST Innovation Lab! I heard this great quote today: you never run out of knowledge, just luck.
I met a lot of fascinating people and had a great deal of fun. There were two sessions today and I was well into the second session. I had run into some of the students and parents from last summer's #UrbanAgTech Camp and some new people as well.
A chance Meeting
I struck up a conversation with a charming young family in the BODIES Learning Lab who where new to PAST, Mezzacello, Ohio and even the US. This was an Israeli and Ghanaian couple that were checking out PAST and what we offering in terms of Applied STEM camps and such.
They were commenting on how they loved the culture of PAST. How willing we are to let kids play and fail and dream. It's true we do encourage students to explore Applied STEM and dream about what ELSE could be done.
We where into a conversation about how surprised they were that their kids were solving problems in Minecraft. She made an observation about learning and the nature of the scientific method and failure that made my ears perk up. She thought most kids just want to do the work and guess, but these kids asked questions.
You never run out of knowledge, just luck.
Davida Osei
This caught my imagination and made me reflective. I could see what she meant that most kids left questions and ideas unchallenged and that really caught my attention. Why don't we seek knowledge over outcomes?
I had just written my blog post on the nature of failure in learning andI was thinking about this when Davida said to me: "It is interesting that you encourage kids to ask deeper questions and fail. The knowledge they gain through failure is so much more valuable than letting them guess at things and just get through the lesson. I suppose you never run out of knowledge, just luck."
An Amazing Insight
That hit me like a ton of bricks. What a great observation! THIS is why we encourage kids to solve problems that are relevant and important to them and to society: It ensures they will NOT guess, but do the work -- not for the grade or the praise, but to make the world a better place.
This is why I am so passionate about science, education, culture, and the future; I want the world to be a better place. And I know if we just TRUST these kids and give them real world problems to solve, they will. And I know they will.
I don't know what's coming this summer. But I know I am ready for it and I will empower kids to live up to Davida's truth. Knowledge, hard work, and applied STEM always trump luck.