Today we learned what it’s like to be misunderstood and that “fail” can be an acronym rather than a verb. 🙃

Students took turns giving instructions to their classmates on how to draw a simple line drawing that the drawers could not see. The instructors also were not able to look at the drawing students drawings.

It was TENSE! It was FRUSTRATING!  It was WORK!  We had a great discussion when a drawing student said they felt like they were completely failing. I asked whose failure it was if it was drawn wrong—the person giving instructions or the person following instructions?  The students realized it could be either, or BOTH!  I also shared with them the acronym for “fail”:

First
Attempt
In
Learning

We talked a bit about what you learn when you do it right and what you learn when you do it wrong.

The drawings were funny. The lessons were absorbed. And it all ended when I asked them to put the chairs back under the table and one student put the WHOLE chair under a table.  Because that’s exactly what I said! Guess *I* learned today, too!

Math/Science: Being Misunderstood