The Educational Power of Goofing Off
One summer when I was in sixth grade my dad Frank called a family meeting. Dad, mom and — at that stage –six of us kids sat around the kitchen table where he made an offer: take a vacation every year, or use the money we’d spend going away, to build our own cabin. The vote was unanimous. And a few weeks later we began the long task of digging foundations, laying block work and lifting wooden panels into place.
My dad was a pharmacist, not a builder. He had no practical construction experience. But equipped with a “how-to” guide, a sense of purpose, and his small army of Desmonds, he did it. And next year, that lakeside cabin in the forests of California, which our family still owns, will be 50 years old.
I was reminded of this experience as I read David McCullough’s biography of the Wright brothers recently. Every American school kid learns their story. So, when I picked it up a few weeks back, I thought I’d be reading about stuff I already knew. I couldn’t have been more wrong and was surprised by how much I liked it.
For a start — and this is what made me think of our cabin — I had not appreciated the importance of family in the whole enterprise. Not least Katharine, their brilliant sister, who provided significant additional brainpower. As with our family project, the Wrights had a can-do spirit. What they lacked in expertise, they made up for with determination and a passion for invention and innovation.
I also hadn’t realized how intensely normal the Wright brothers were. So, what set them apart? And, as we think about the start of the new school year, what can we learn from their story to help nurture the next generation of inventors?
First, the Wright brothers were utterly relentless. They kept asking themselves, “Why not?” and they kept answering that question by applying what worked and what didn’t each time, in a quest for continual improvement. Schools that have strong leadership, great teaching, and high expectations are the same. And the best ones strive to keep getting better so that their students do too.
Second, the brothers were in the right place. I decided to read The Wright Brothers after traveling to their hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to visit Sinclair Community College, where they do terrific work helping students complete college. Dayton was a dynamic place in the 1900s and the brothers thrived even though they had no formal training and hadn’t even been to college. What comes through in the book, which I find reassuring and inspiring, is that you don’t have to get anointed as some future superstar to do something amazing. That’s why schools should have high expectations for all their students regardless of background, race or income.
Third, is what I would call the power of goofing off: that intangible part of learning, which comes from your environment and your circumstances. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we support high consistent academic standards. And what the story of the Wright brothers teaches us, is that some of the biggest breakthroughs come from taking that knowledge into real-world settings. According to McCullough, a lot of how the Wrights thought about flight they learned from bird watching. Their circumstances enabled them to dream big. I feel like we’re in the human capital business at the foundation, working with others to help create circumstances so more people can reach their full potential. The Wright Brothers had that opportunity — and we believe others should have it to.
The story of the Wright brothers, as conveyed by McCullough, shows how innovation and creativity thrive in the right environment. But as I read, I also found myself thinking how inspiration often materializes in surprising moments.
Inspiration rarely comes when you’re in a meeting, or looking at a PowerPoint slide, and is much more likely to happen when you’re relaxing at the beach, or taking a walk or a bike ride.
In the case of the Wright brothers, it was while bird-watching. And for my dad, inspiration came at our kitchen table in Reno, Nevada.
