“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
This famous quote from Yoda in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was rousing text to teach young Luke Skywalker why he had failed to grasp the concept of belief. The concept was simple: Skywalker uses the force to affect his surroundings. Using telekinesis to move pebbles and stones was one thing, but when he tried to move a whole spaceship, he failed and gave up. Yoda demonstrated successfully to the disbelief of Skywalker. Yoda confirmed, “That is why you failed.”
Our society operates in a similar fashion: what is possible has to be demonstrated first, then comes the believing; not the other way around. In fact our scientific understanding of the known universe operates entirely on this premise in that the acceptance of new ideas must first be proved and demonstrated (repeatedly) before it can be considered as new knowledge. But the rigors of the scientific method need not (and should not) apply to a child’s self-discovery. Children learn to walk because they believe they can, and then they do. Children believe that if they pedal fast enough, they can overcome the pull of gravity and propel themselves forward on a bicycle. And they do. Children have far fewer filters than adults and they fundamentally believe that a thing is possible and do not worry about the physical mechanics of making it so. Grade school children’s pictures and stories may appear as fiction to us, but to them, it is certainly within the realm of existence.
Children have far fewer filters than adults and they fundamentally believe that a thing is possible and do not worry about the physical mechanics of making it so. In fact, her not knowing what she doesn’t know doesn’t make anything impossible.
Our institutions should do everything they can to extend childhood a little longer and protect their reservoir of wonderment from which they draw inspiration. There are some schools in Europe which emphasize the importance of unstructured instructions in a non-classroom environment. There are many schools even in North America that don’t just focus on academics. The Waldorf School is one such example. Slowly changing is the increasingly conventional belief that the amount of homework, tutoring and academic excellence is not a guarantor for personal achievement and happiness. In fact, it may be the reverse.
We have to be aware of the duality of belief and effort. Forcing effort alone without considering capability (or desire) is an ineffective way to pass the time. Look at kids at a skateboard park trying to perfect that 720 gazelle flip on a half-pipe. For these kids, they already know what is possible and believe they can do it. An amputee athlete will recondition her mind to run a race. In both cases, the mind has already accepted this possible reality. The rest of it is detail—allowing the physical body to catch up. This is where belief and effort collide with joy. Even a sedentary activity like my daughter’s cello follows the same learning curve. Her school doesn’t use music notation when introducing new pieces; she listens to the music (the CD is put on repeat during dinner) and remembers the tempo, beat, pitches, notes and slurs. Her not knowing how to play it (right now) doesn’t make the piece impossible. In fact, her not knowing what she doesn’t know doesn’t make anything impossible. This was the way Michelangelo had approached a slab a marble in the 16th century.
Telling a child to try and try again until they succeed is a little like Alice’s experience in Wonderland. “If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take.” It’s a journey without purpose. In everything your child embarks upon that is meaningful, help them first belief that it is possible even before effort is expended. Let them discover their own competence. What they believe to be intrinsically possible can then be extrinsically demonstrated. “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”