Middle School Summer Camps: Fail Forward

Smile!

When Overlake launched the Summer Program in 2015, we viewed it as an opportunity to think outside-the-box, test-drive new educational possibilities, and experiment with concepts that we might later integrate into the school year. As Program Director Nate Edmunds explains, “It’s valuable to have the time and space to take risks and open possibilities for kids in ways that aren’t as feasible during the school year. When our summer faculty meet, we encourage each other to model the type of risk-taking and innovative thinking that we hope to see in our students.”

This week’s Middle School camps embodied that concept, as creative risk-taking and a “fail forward” vision were front and center in the camps. Mike Hufstader’s Guinness Book of World Records and Engineer Design Challenge explored the design process, focusing more on what was learned from each attempt than any single result: “The first test is very rarely the best one,” Hufstader explains. “The students had several attempts at each activity and tried to improve after each one.”

In Alicia Gold and Jennifer Pan’s Mission in the Kitchen (Desserts) camp, the teachers also encouraged students to learn from their mistakes. “We have a recipe for each dish,” explains Pan, “but it’s pretty common that someone makes a mistake, or that someone puts a spin on something that we didn’t think about. That’s part of the fun. We try to help the students learn how to adapt and adjust when the plan goes a little bit sideways.”