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13. Taking Responsible Risks.
There has been a calculated risk in every stage of American development--the pioneers who were not afraid of the
wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, dreamers who were not afraid of action.
Brooks Atkinson
Flexible people seem to have an almost uncontrollable urge to go beyond established limits. They are uneasy about
comfort; they "live on the edge of their competence". They seem compelled to place themselves in situations where they
do not know what the outcome will be. They accept confusion, uncertainty, and the higher risks of failure as part of the
normal process and they learn to view setbacks as interesting, challenging and growth producing. However, they are not
behaving impulsively. Their risks are educated. They draw on past knowledge, are thoughtful about consequences and
have a well-trained sense of what is appropriate. They know that all risks are not worth taking!
When someone holds back from taking risks, he is confronted constantly with missed opportunities. Some students
seem reluctant to take risks. Some students hold back games, new learning, and new friendships because their fear of
failure is far greater than their experience of venture or adventure. They are reinforced by the mental voice that says, “ if
you don’t try it, you won’t be wrong” or “if you try it and you are wrong, you will look stupid”. The other voice that might
say, “if you don’t try it, you will never know” is trapped in fear and mistrust. They are more interested in knowing whether
their answer is correct or not, rather than being challenged by the process of finding the answer. They are unable to
sustain a process of problem solving and finding the answer over time, and therefore avoid ambiguous situations. They
have a need for certainty rather than an inclination for doubt We hope that students will learn how to take intellectual as
well as physical risks. Students who are capable of being different, going against the grain of the common, thinking of
new ideas and testing them with peers as well as teachers, are more likely to be successful in this age of innovation and
uncertainty.
14. Finding Humour
“Where do bees wait? At the buzz stop.” Andrew, Age six
Another unique attribute of human beings is our sense of humour. Laughter transcends all human beings. Its’ positive
effects on psychological functions include a drop in the pulse rate, the secretion of endorphins, an increased oxygen in
the blood. It has been found to liberate creativity and provoke such higher level thinking skills as anticipation, finding
novel relationships, visual imagery, and making analogies. People who engage in the mystery of humour have the ability
to perceive situations from an original and often interesting vantage point. They tend to initiate humour more often, to
place greater value on having a sense of humour, to appreciate and understand others' humour and to be verbally
playful when interacting with others. Having a whimsical frame of mind, they thrive on finding incongruity and perceiving
absurdities, ironies and satire; finding discontinuities and being able to laugh at situations and themselves. Some
students find humour in all the "wrong places"--human differences, ineptitude, injurious behaviour, vulgarity, violence
and profanity. They laugh at others yet are unable to laugh at themselves.
We want our students to acquire the characteristic of creative problem solvers, they can distinguish between situations
of human frailty and fallibility which are in need of compassion and those which are truly funny.
15. Thinking Interdependently
Take care of each other. Share your energies with the group. No one must feel alone, cut off, for that is when you do not
make it. Willie Unsoeld (Renowned Mountain Climber)
Human beings are social beings. We congregate in groups, find it therapeutic to be listened to, draw energy from one
another, and seek reciprocity. In groups we contribute our time and energy to tasks that we would quickly tire of when
working alone. In fact, we have learned that one of the cruelest forms of punishment that can be inflicted on an
individual is solitary confinement. Cooperative humans realize that all of us together are more powerful, intellectually
and/or physically, than any one individual. Probably the foremost disposition in the post industrial society is the
heightened ability to think in concert with others; to find ourselves increasingly more interdependent and sensitive to the
needs of others. Problem solving has become so complex that no one person can go it alone. No one has access to all
the data needed to make critical decisions; no one person can consider as many alternatives as several people can.
Some students may not have learned to work in groups; they have underdeveloped social skills. They feel isolated, they
prefer their solitude. "Leave me alone--I'll do it by myself". "They just don't like me". "I want to be alone." Some students
seem unable to contribute to group work either by being a "job hog" or conversely, letting others do all the work.
Working in groups requires the ability to justify ideas and to test the feasibility of solution strategies on
others. It also requires the development of a willingness and openness to accept the feedback from a critical friend.
Through this interaction the group and the individual continue to grow. Listening, consensus seeking, giving up an idea
to work with someone else's, empathy, compassion, group leadership, knowing how to support group efforts, altruism--
all are behaviours indicative of cooperative human beings.
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