If you’re an educator, the disruptive world of Silicon Valley probably couldn’t seem farther from your local public school system. But what you may not realize is that the techniques that start-ups prize are already changing the way educators across the country implement changes in their school systems. In today’s fraught political and educational climate, schools would do well to look for inspiration wherever they can find it—and one of the most important lessons educators can borrow is from Silicon Valley. In order to succeed, the lesson goes, you have to be willing to fail fast.
We’re familiar with the word “failure” being slung at our schools, of course, but with a much different tone, and in a much different context. The idea of “failing schools” is so prevalent in the media that Huffington Post has an entire tag dedicated to the subject. But is it possible to reframe our view of what “failing” can mean? Might the rhetoric of Silicon Valley—its emphasis on iteration, its embrace of a new type of failure—have something to offer our classrooms? I’ve worked with enough schools to be able to answer definitively: yes.
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post. Read the full article here.