I found this presentation from Greg Ip to be insightful, and it corresponds well with broader discussions about the relationship between complex systems and chaos. As a teacher in a public middle school, I found Ip’s explanations also compelling from the perspective of K-12 education, not only one of economics.

Ip asks the question: How can we allow danger to make us safe?

I think in a school, we can never completely remove the psychological “dangers” of peer and self-perceptions when challenged by difficult and complex academic content and tasks. The question, perhaps, is not how can we make content easier or ignore the reality that failing in front of others is inherently risky, but rather how can we increase students’ willingness to take the risks necessary for learning? And as Ip suggests as a lesson from the aviation industry, maybe being transparent about the smaller failures and misconceptions that inevitably do occur along the way can be of greater benefit in the long-run, and prevent much greater misconceptions from occurring father down the line.

This also goes along with Tyler Cowen’s suggestion prior to the panel that a focus on “risk communication” can go a long way. In education, risk communication might mean framing learning in a manner that engages student interest and willingness to struggle.

What I found most interesting in the panel discussion was how all of the panelists implicitly concurred on the point that human beings suffer from psychological limitations, which results in greater uncertainty and unpredictability. In education and psychology, we are increasingly discussing those limitations under the banner of “cognitive bias.”

Much of the work that we do in my school’s Support Services department (we’ve decided to rebrand the term “special education) is to try and shift student perceptions of themselves. Often the greatest barrier to student learning is not disability, nor even the content and tasks demanded by rigorous academic subjects, but rather a student’s belief that they are either unable to do the work, or that asking the necessary questions to clarify their understanding is simply not worth the “risk” of appearing “stupid.”