Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Learning from our Mistakes...

 On Thanksgiving eve, I sit in my kitchen waiting for the smoke to clear; burned tray of cookies in the garbage. No one is perfect. Me least of all in the kitchen. And pretty much at every holiday, I make this kind of mistake. Sometimes, there's a fire truck. Sometimes, just the fire alarm. This time, doors and windows were opened, and fans turned on. Just burned cookies this time. No firefighters. No one gets it right all the time. I seem to never learn the timing thing in the kitchen. It made me reflect on our expectations, both for ourselves and for others-particularly our kids. Let me say it again: no one is perfect. Thank goodness. And wouldn't life be dull if it was? We all mess up. Sometimes it's little things like a batch of cookies left too long, other times much, much bigger and more important things. Life is hard. Sometimes we get it wrong. Very wrong. And we ask for forgiveness. And hope that the people we love will grant it. But that's life, right? It wouldn't be nearly so interesting if it always went right. And we wouldn't be who we are if we always got it right. 

I think about my students. Seniors mostly and anxiously working on essays for college. Anxious about not getting into the "right" school. Their parents as well, understandably anxious, because all they want is for their kids to be ok. Parents worry. That's what we do. We just want our kids to be ok. Happy even. Best yet, successful. And so, we try to help, steer, aid, make sure they're alright. It's a natural instinct. Instead, what we should do is let them fend for themselves, get it wrong, and then figure it out. Our children, particularly post pandemic, have been sheltered. We took care of them. We felt badly that their lives were derailed and they were stuck in their rooms for hours on end staring at a screen. So we helped. We opened their snacks, delivered lunch, tried to make their lives easier. But now, it's time. Back to reality. Our kids need help. We need to step away, let them fail, and allow them to struggle. Sure, when it's too much, we need to step in, but we also need to step away. Often. And we, as parents, need to remember that they're going to be ok. Even if they don't get into the 'right' college. Even if they don't get A's or even B's. Let them learn. Let them struggle. Help them understand that they'll be ok, even if they don't get it right all the time. Life will be more interesting. They will learn to be kind to themselves, accept the failures as well as the successes. And they won't freak out when they burn the cookies. They'll laugh, hopefully, and put another tray in the oven and watch it more closely. Happy Thanksgiving.


Thursday, June 30, 2022

Final Pitch Night 2022

We were finally back in person for our Final Pitch Night 2022. You can watch the students' pitches here

Monday, October 12, 2020

No Barriers Podcast

I was recently a guest on the No Barriers Podcast and talked with Eric and Dave about Design Thinking and educating today's youth so they become resilient and agentic.

 https://nobarriersusa.org/podcast/interview-with-lisa-yokana/

Monday, March 25, 2019

Entrepreneurship Team Wins No Barriers Global Impact Challenge

The AT Entrepreneurship class will be giving their final pitches on April 24th in the Little Theater
at 7:30 PM. All are welcome. Our AT students have been working feverishly, prototyping, testing
and reiterating based on feedback. The teams have focused on problems they identified from  
visiting the Sunshine Children's Home, and through interviews and research. Several teams are
trying to create connections for non-verbal children through apps or websites. Other teams are
working on games that teach cause and effect and create a sense of community. Another team is
creating a 3D printed rail system for mounting medical devices on a wheelchair. And one team is
working on an adaptive shirt for children who can't dress themselves.


Gary Sheinbaum, CEO of Tommy Hilfiger Americas, and Mindy Scheier, President and Founder of
Runway of Dreams, gave a presentation about their adaptive clothing line. Afterwards, they listened
to teams pitch their ideas and gave feedback. Our students were invited to work with the PVH
Innovation team and we visited their headquarters where students pitched their ideas and received
feedback.

We are pleased to announce that one of our teams, focusing on adaptive clothing, has won
the No Barriers Global Impact Challenge for their design. This team consisting of seven seniors,
received a check for $5000 from Wells Fargo and No Barriers to continue work on their prototype.
They will also be attending and presenting at the No Barriers Summit 2019 in Lake Tahoe, California
in June.  

More News From The Design Lab

Quarter Two was a busy one for STEAM classes in the Design Lab. Entrepreneurship students in our
full year, Advanced Topics course, who are designing for students with multiple and severe disabilities,
determined the problems they wanted to focus on and used the business model canvas to define the
value their products would create. They will continue to refine and iterate their prototypes and present
their results in a public forum at the end of the year.


Two of the second level electives, Design for Modern Production and Design/Build are working jointly
with fifth grade Edgewood students to solve problems in certain spaces at Edgewood. Beginning with a
field trip to Edgewood, teams of students, both high school and elementary, toured spaces and identified
problems. The teams have been simultaneously designing solutions, giving feedback to one another
via blog posts and Google hangouts. The high school students will build the solutions before the end
of first semester and present them to Edgewood students, faculty and administration. High school
students learned to work with younger students, helping them through the design process

Robotics students learned programming, building and mechanics through a maze challenge. Now,
after learning the basics, they are designing a grand prix race around the classroom and will run
time trials with their robots. Introduction to Engineering students have had a taste of robotics
through creating mini mazes to navigate with pre built robots and Design and Fabrication students
are seeking ways to add value to our school community.