Lesson Learned From a
Podcast With Evan Spiegel and Jon Gordon
Here is the link for the full podcast: https://positiveuniversity.com/episode/evan-spiegel/
When I was a teenager, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. My older brother decided that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. My brother drove me to the bookstore, and he walked me to the education section of the store. He told me that if I want to be an educator then I need to read everything that already exists within my field. I sat in the store reading books, and my brother went to the section of the store that was of interest to him. When you fast forward in life, I still continue to read everything that I can about education. As I prepare to teach a new course this semester, I read 40 books. Plus, I still have a lot of books on my list that I want to read. My brother started his own company, and he continues to stay knowledgeable about what is going on within his field.
In addition, I love listening to podcasts as I work-out. I loved listening to the Podcast between Evan Spiegel and Jon Gordon. I love learning about the story behind the journey of different inventors, entrepreneurs, educators, etc. I found a lot of parallels between what was shared from the creator of Snapchat (now called Snap), and lessons that I can learn as educator.
I love that Evan Spiegel explained that he started his journey with being an entrepreneur from a college course. The professor had different guest speakers. He was able to see different possibilities by learning from these experiences. I love that as educators we can open doors, and we can provide students with possibilities that can help them find their true direction or purpose.
Before Snap, Evan Spiegel had invested a year working on a project called "Future Freshman." The project wasn't working, and it was difficult for him to let go of it to change to something that did work. However, by letting go of the things that didn't work he was able to move into something better. Also, he could not focus on what others were doing around him. He had to stay on track working with his friend to try new things. I remember that when I was 100 pages into my dissertation, I found out that my dissertation committee didn't like it. It was difficult, but I threw the dissertation away, and I started again. It worked, and I was able to create a new curriculum: Ludus Reading. Evan Spiegel said, "Start with an idea that is simple, so you can learn as quickly as possible." We need to teach our students that we learn from our failures. Our failures can lead to opportunities that we never imagined. "We need to take big risks as long as we believe in it." The idea to fail forward is a new concept that I have introduced to my Girls Who Code Robots Club. Their first assignment was to fail as much as possible. The girls were shocked, but it allowed them to take creative risks, and they could move away from worrying about failing. We need to learn from our mistakes.
One thing that Snap does well is that they listen to the community. They make changes to their company based-on the feedback from the community. However, they are strategic in how they respond to the requests of the community. In our classroom, we need to listen and get to know the learners who are part of our community. We need to find ways to change our instruction to best meet the needs of our students. However, we need to be intentional about the instruction that we provide to the students based-on their feedback.
When you are building a start-up then you need to focus on positivity. You receive a lot of negativity from the public versus when you work as a private company. We had to be ten times as positive within our company to overcome the negativity that comes from the outside world. Positivity is magnetic and it attracts great people! In our classroom we have some students who come into our classroom who have experienced a great deal of negativity in their life. We are lucky as teachers because we get to invest in our students. Sometimes we are the only bright spot in that students' life. We need to remember to shelter our students from negativity. We need to let them know they are valued.
We have so much to learn from one another. Snap uses council, which is a concept that he learned when he was in school. There are three rules: Speak from the heart. Listen from the heart. Be spontaneous. Everyone sits in a circle, and everyone listens to one another. In our classroom, we have a morning meeting every day where the students have to learn how to be active listeners. It is important for young learners to be able to take the perspective of others. We can achieve a lot when we can understand that we area valued, and we are in a safe place to share our ideas.
I think we could add a little extra Snap to our classroom instruction. We can bring in experts to share things with our students. We can create a positive culture where students actively listen to one another. We can listen to our students to help improve our classroom culture. Students need to remember to continue to fail forward. There are a lot of other takeaways from this podcast, and I would highlight recommend it.
