Learning throughout Life

While watching the “TED” video I thought a lot about how I have learned things in my life so far and where I have learned these things. I also thought about what different things I have learned and what purpose they have served to me. Also, how people around me have viewed my failures and successes.
There are many things throughout my life that I have learned outside of school. Much like Gever’s tinkering school many things that people learn in their lives outside of school are learned by doing, trial and error. When you try something new as a kid and you “mess up” your parents encourage you to try again and they tell you that you will succeed next time. Like learning how to ride a bike without the training wheels, you have to learn by doing. You must fall in order to learn how, you go a little bit without your mom or dad holding on and after you go for a bit you fall. But you falling is celebrated because you rode on your bike by yourself for a bit. After that you get back on and try again and after trying again and again you learn how to keep going and ride by yourself on two wheels.
Inside a school we are taught that we need to learn everything and that we MUST pass the tests we are given. We are shown the right way to do things in school and often times we are not allowed the time to try ourselves and fail and then try again and learn from failure. Teachers don’t give students the opportunities to just try something. Instead of feeding students the information for the next test, teachers could try to give the students a new assignment and just let them go and try and learn from mistakes. At a young age in school we are taught that failure is bad and that we need to learn things and do them the right way the first time we try.
An example that I found that fits for both the in school and out of school learning is when a student learns how to drive a vehicle. A student learns the rules of the road in class and learn what to and not to do while driving. But the time comes when you have to get into the car and actually drive. The first time is a bit shaky, but just like riding a bike you get better and eventually are driving to the best of your abilities. For me the best way to learn is to do hands on, in this example I did best when I got behind the wheel and learned how to drive by driving the car myself. My first time I was a “curb hugger” and made mistakes, but after the first time I got better and better until I was able to take my driver’s test and drive by myself.
In the video Gever says that at the tinkering school, “Failure is celebrated and analyzed, and problems are puzzles.” This is often not societies view on failure. Many times when you fail in “the real world” people like down on you and criticize you. Just the opposite should come from failure as Gever says. I have learned that failure is not a bad thing, it helps me learn to keep trying and do better the next time that I make an attempt, by learning to fail people become better at what they are trying to do. Without the struggle of learning to do something there is no satisfaction or celebration when you learn or accomplish something.