This is our 7th session with Kevin and Pauline, and each year they continue to set the bar higher with challenging our students to test not only their design and creativity, but also their mental resilience. Robotics to the outsider looking at the photos would appear to be about the skills of coding and having some cool fun with gears and motors. But when you spend a day with our kids and watch them go through the process of design, test, fail, design, test fail, success, then fail, then back to design and finally reach success, its a goosebump moment that we teachers love to be part of.
We watch them go through sitting in all the emotions of being confident, then feeling confused, to frustrated, even defeated, and we give them time to really sit in these emotions, and then we see their mindshift, to acknowledge their accountability to persevere, to problem solve, to ask for help, to be brave to make mistakes and to feel the amazing feeling of success that only comes from hard work, and feeling safe to fail.
Today we talked about the importance of failing fast. We knew that the day would be filled with challenge, success and failure and the quickest way to reach success is to be ready to fail, and fail fast so that you can learn how to get it right and feel success even faster. If you see the frowns they have been felt and owned. But most importantly the grins you see have been earned.
Lisa van Noordennen, Principal: Barnawartha Primary School
Innovators in Robotics Education for over 20 years, Kevin and Pauline have created generations of creative and curious minds working in both schools and other educational organisations.
