Take chances, make mistakes, get messy - notes from Ms. Frizzle

With a four-year-old at home I have recently been reacquainted with the show The Magic School Bus and its energetic and experimental teacher, Ms. Frizzle. It wasn't until this morning as I was watching the show side by side with my son that I noticed how strong a teacher Ms. Frizzle truly was. We will of course overlook some of the legal pieces of parent permission, and implausibilities of the actual adventures, and take her work for what it was... great teaching. Let's break down her catch phrase, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

Take Chances

As you watch the episodes you will notice that she often answers a question with her own question, pushing her scholars to be risk takers and discover their own answers. Strong teachers and administrators find opportunities for scholars to take chances in their own learning in order to learn and grow. Some of the best teachers I know design lessons for their scholars to take a step outside of their comfort zone and test what they do and don't know. It's the work that happens when scholars don't know that leaves the most impact. When you're designing your next lesson, I encourage you to find opportunities (of which there will be many) to challenge your scholars to go ahead and take chances. 

Make Mistakes

In recent years there has been a serious push for educators to allow for scholars to "make mistakes" in the form of retests and redo's. There is strong opposition to the idea of retakes by many who believe that the real world doesn't allow space for mistakes to be made and if we as educators are doing the "right work", we will train students to try their hardest the first time and deal with the results of that hard work... like grown adults do. I could argue this point for hours, but suffice it to say this argument is not only weak, but there are multiple examples in the "real world" of adults failing only later to succeed. Ms. Frizzle does a wonderful job of pushing her students to take chances and follows it up with providing a culture where making mistakes is okay. Not only are they okay, but they are viewed and discussed as opportunities for increased knowledge! The safest space for scholars is where they can take chances with the knowledge that mistakes are okay!

Get Messy

But Rob you don't understand, I teach math and getting messy is just not possible. Okay, so maybe you can't literally get messy, but Ms. Frizzle's scholars weren't always literally messy. Getting messy is when the teacher gets out of the way and the scholars get into the work. Ms. Frizzle creates the space where the scholar knows the final goals, but they create the path in which they arrive to that goals. Getting messy is the culmination of taking risks and knowing it's okay to make mistakes. When teachers design lessons that call on scholars to know the goal and then create the means to get there, scholars will be truly "getting messy" with their education. The neatest part of "getting messy" is that that is where our scholars take responsibility of the work and retain a higher amount of the content. It is the adage that we remember 5% of what we hear, 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and read, 30% of what we see, and 75% of what we do. Getting messing is the students "doing"! 

So as you approach the end of another week and you begin to prepare for next week; how will you embody Ms. Frizzle's classroom pedagogy?