Have you ever come across a series of Pinterest #craftfails? I remember a few that had me laughing hysterically—not at the person who’d had a Pinterest fail but with them because I have had my fair share and can definitely empathize with these fails. In addition to making me laugh, seeing those flops made me feel better. I remember that I am not the only who doesn’t just whip up a batch of perfect cake balls on the first try (or second or third) to the dismay of my daughter.
I spent the week with amazing international educators at #ISBLbD rethinking what school could be and one thing that continued to come up in conversation was the fear of not being perfect or doing “it” right based on past experiences and what was comfortable.  This fear, they shared, was rooted in wanting to be the best for their students and wanting to make sure that they were effectively preparing students for success. (more ideas on this notion of success to come). This sparked my thinking about our classrooms, and how we are so quick to share the positives and what goes well but often fail to share the process and learning journey.
This can lead to constant comparison to perfection and can cripple people who don’t have success on their first or second try – which by the way is most everyone!- or even prevent us from trying something new and can make us feel like the ideal state is impossible for us. Instead, when we are open about what we want to accomplish and work together, we can start to take those small steps out of our comfort zone that can have a big impact on learners and what and how they are learning. 

3 Steps to Getting out of Your Comfort Zone

1. Take Small Steps but DO Something

The desire to be perfect and have everyone think that we have it all together can prevent learning and innovation if we don’t take risks to step out of our comfort zone.  It can also create barriers to moving forward such as “this is the way we have always done it,” “I learned it this way, and I am fine,” or aversion of “my students(or teachers) can’t do that.”
If you find yourself saying, “my kids can’t do that,” or “yeah, but. . . ” consider how you could reframe your fear and take a small step forward to try something and learn from what works and what doesn’t. I often see classroom walls filled with signs that celebrate failure, such as, FAIL: First Attempt in Learning.
These statements help promote the growth mindset in students as they acknowledge that failure is part of the learning process. It is great to see teachers promoting this mindset in students, but if we don’t model this among our colleagues or with students in our classrooms, what message are we actually sending? Are you opening yourself up to try your new ideas and take risks and share what you are learning as you expect your students to do, or are you just paying lip service to the notion? 

2. Share Your Process

If we paint a glossy version of what our ideal classrooms should be or what we want people to see, we will continue to isolate ourselves and our practice in service of an ideal rather than embrace the messiness of learning and innovation. In thinking about this gap between where we want to be and where we are, I was reminded of a conversation I’d had with an amazing teacher who was having trouble with her colleagues. She was named the teacher of the year at her school, but she felt isolated and ganged up on by her peers, who were trying to prevent her from creating a website to showcase her students’ work. She was devastated because she was working so hard and wanted to share what her students were doing. Her colleagues were giving her flak for going above and beyond. As we talked about the situation, she realized that she had only let her team teachers see her success; she had emphasized what was going well and downplayed her challenges. Ultimately, the picture-perfect image she had presented created jealousy and resentment among peers.
We naturally hide our fails, but doing so doesn’t build community; in fact, that fake persona prevents connection. Although it is important to share your work and highlight the positives, we shouldn’t omit shining a light on the process that got us there so that others can join us.
As I talked with this teacher about how to bridge the divide between her and her colleagues, she decided to share her process, how she could create such amazing projects with her students, and what she had learned along the way. Once she shared how she had struggled, the challenges she faced with her team teachers, and offered to highlight their students on her website, the walls began to fall. Her team started bringing her in to ask for support instead of closing their doors.
Many times, when educators feel that they are isolated from their peers or when their colleagues are giving them a hard time about going above and beyond, they might have shared very little of the process and added to the misperceptions and divisions.

3. Create Systems for Sharing and Feedback

In Creativity, Inc, Ed Catmull, Pixar’s co-founder and president describes how their movies are always bad, to begin with.  Yes, this is the same company that has produced Toy Story, Up, Monsters Inc and so many more #1 movies. He shares that instead of creating systems that prevent errors and striving for perfection, he understands that creative process takes time and their motto is to create systems for feedback and support to take initial ideas for movies to move from “suck to unsuck.” He urges, “Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.” At Pixar their movies go through multiple drafts, revisions and teams receive candid feedback from others to make sure the ideas are the best they can be.
When we only focus on the end result, we fail to communicate to learners the importance of sharing ideas early, getting feedback, and revising things to improve.  If we don’t honor the learning process, we communicate that we either get it or we don’t. And as a result, we are negatively impacting learner’s confidence, creativity, and investment in their own learning and growth. Increasingly, there is a focus on failure in the learning process and it is certainly part of it, but the bigger picture to me is acknowledging that success isn’t black and white. Learning is a process and it takes time, effort, and growth to achieve success, even when we don’t see it.