- make a bigger contribution to a person, group, or cause (a cause can be just about anything – some purpose that has meaning to you and others)
- have better relationships romantically and with family, friends, co-workers, community members (by community I mean any group of people that you interact with)
- feel proud, content, satisfied, or happy (in my mind I bundle a lot of things behind these but you might split them out)
- feel healthier (here too, there are a lot of sub-items)
Category: teaching
In most formal education the objectives and methods are clearly defined. Standards for learning are defined by the teacher or institution. Students perform within boundaries, with a high degree of guidance and/or feedback, whether in the form of curriculum materials, interpersonal interaction with instructors and peers, or assessment mechanisms.
This prepares us for some well-defined situations in life and business, but there are many other situations where there is a need to do something new, which means there is a need to learn, but the objectives, methods, standards, boundaries, guidance, and feedback are not yet defined.
Suppose, then, that I want to prepare people to learn for and in those new and complex situations. Some examples of more complex situations: interpersonal, family and group dynamics; social or cultural change; entrepreneurship and innovation.
In preparing for and operating in those situations I can find out what is already known, what has succeeded and failed and why, and then come up against the limits of knowledge and start exploring and experimenting in the unknown.
Is it appropriate to place students in such a situation and allow them to fail? Navigating through failure is an important skill for those complex situations.
Does it make it more effective or less effective as a learning experience to tell them what is happening at the beginning? Or is it better to reveal the intent later in the process?
Is it a form of aggression, or is it hurtful, to then judge their failures negatively when the intent and learning experience was not well understood? How can that be mitigated or processed?
Is it possible to fully understand without experiencing it?