Austin Scholar #78: How to teach your kids about ambiguity
& what I learned from losing
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: What I learned from losing
How to teach your kids about ambiguity
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been reading this week
This is the literally hardest newsletter for me to write. Intellectually, I understand the concept I’m writing about, but I really, really don’t like it. I’m a rule follower who hates projects that don’t have instructions. My sister, on the other hand, doesn’t have the word “rulebook” in her vocabulary. In most areas in school, my way of thinking wins out. But this last Thursday, she crushed me.
Austin’s Anecdote: What I learned from losing
This past week was orientation week at Alpha High, which always means something interesting is going to happen.
Each afternoon, we did a competition that was meant to introduce us to all of the concepts we’d learn in AlphaX, which is what our Masterpiece program is called. On Monday, we rushed to complete puzzles and memorize poems faster than the other teams in an Amazing Race-esque challenge. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we competed and pitched in a Hackathon with the goal of building something to help high schoolers stay organized and manage their time. And finally, on Thursday, we researched and presented in a Rabbit-hole-athon.
It was a packed week, but my biggest learning happened after the competition ended.
I had a strong team: we got second place in the Amazing Race challenge and won the Hackathon, meaning we were on a pretty strong trajectory to winning the entire week.
However, my sister’s team was also crushing it. They were only a few points behind us, and if they won first place in the Rabbit-hole-athon they’d finish the week in first place. So, my team and I were super motivated to crush the final day of the competition.
For those of you who might be wondering “literally what in the world is a Rabbit-hole-athon”, basically, you have to do a deep dive into a topic (go down an internet rabbit-hole) and then develop a “spiky POV” that you present.
According to Wes Kao, “a spiky point of view is a perspective others can disagree with. It’s a belief you feel strongly about and are willing to advocate for. It’s your thesis about topics in your realm of expertise.”
The topic for this Rabbit-hole-athon was “what makes an Olympic mindset.” Teams were given a rubric that covers the research, spiky point of view, and presentation characteristics that make a top-scoring team. My team (we named ourselves the Navy Seals because our team color was navy) got right to work.
We found research-backed evidence to support our spiky POV (“To have an Olympic mindset, your entire life has to be miserable. But it’s worth it.” I don’t know if I actually believe this, but the point was to argue a point most people don’t agree with, and this fits that description.). We framed our arguments in a strong and emotional way.
We ticked every single box on that rubric. And when the Navy Seals got up to present, we did not have a single mistake. We crushed it.
Or so we thought.
My sister’s team had a really fun skit in their presentation, but their spiky point of view was “you have to be naturally talented to be an Olympian.” I know she doesn’t actually read my newsletter, so I don’t have to hold back: that isn’t really something a lot of people disagree with, nor does it really follow the instructions.
However, her team remembered one thing the Navy Seals did not: the judges were the students. Since they performed as a skit, all the other kids liked–and remembered–their presentation. Even though they didn’t even really do the assignment (at least, not right).
At the end of the day, they won both the Rabbit-hole-athon and the competition.
When it was announced, I was kind of upset. Not only because I knew my sister would be insufferable about it (as younger sisters are), but also because I genuinely felt like my team’s presentation had matched the rubric the best.
But at the end of the day, we should’ve remembered that the judge wasn’t the rubric, it was the other students. We recognized that we did not tailor our presentation to the appropriate audience, and it caused us to lose.
Yeah, it probably wasn’t the most “fair” situation. But that’s kind of what life is.
Rubrics only live in school. “Fair” doesn’t really exist. The people who succeed in life are the ones who understand how to break the rules–and can use that knowledge to their advantage.
We had a lesson in failure.
So the Navy Seals did not win the AlphaX orientation week competition, but we learned something of equal, if not greater, value. We learned that success is not always ensured by ticking all of the boxes or adhering to the guidelines. Sometimes, it’s about really knowing who your audience is and thinking about projects in new, interesting ways.
How to teach your kids about ambiguity
It is so, so important to teach your kid that there is always, always uncertainty in life–and that you can’t always follow instructions to win.
This is a hard lesson to teach kids, especially with the clear rubric-grade structure of school clouding their perspective. So, here are five example projects you can give to your kid that are super open-ended and don’t have a clear set of instructions to follow (so they can practice rule-bending in real time):