“Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing.” Teach Different with Unknown Author, Courage and Failure

Transcript

Dan (00:10)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We are back in action and we have, I believe, Steve, if I’m not mistaken, our fifth certificate holder from our spring pilot, a teacher who’s gone through our certification program, learning the Teach Different method, applied it in her classroom and live to tell about it is what we like to say, right? So, Angela Escanilla is here and we will introduce her in a moment and get her background and all the fun stuff. And then we will get into a little bit about her passion for teaching, where it comes from, some of that, and then move into a quote and a conversation. We have a really good one today from an anonymous author on risk taking, courage, and finding opportunities. It’s actually got a lot of different themes in it that I think everybody is going to be able to relate to young and old. Okay, well, Angela, welcome, first of all, to the Teach Different podcast and thank you so much for participating in our spring experience. It was a pleasure working with you then and now to have you back is like a bonus. So if you just want to just give a little bit of your background and how you got into teaching and why.

Angela Escanilla (01:32)

Sure, hi. Thank you so much for having me. I have been teaching for, well, this is going to be my 10th year now in the fall. And I teach in Unity Junior High School in Cicero, which also happens to be my former middle school. That’s always like a fun fact that I always like to start with because it was almost exactly 10 years since I graduated eighth grade that I went back and started teaching middle school there, so I thought that was really cool. But I started off, before I became a humanities teacher, I started off seventh grade reading in language arts. just gen ed, I had a few honors classes here and there. And then one of my former teachers, who’s actually a really great friend of mine now, started the humanities program, which is an integrated reading and language arts and social studies course. And so she kind of invited me to help pilot the eighth grade curriculum. And so that’s kind of how my love of social studies and civics grew.

Dan (02:38)

I love it. So you’re actually a blend of a lot of different subjects kind of put together under a humanities umbrella. That’s very unique, Angela. That’s really cool. I didn’t know that about you from the spring. Thanks for sharing that.

Steve (02:53)

So Angela, I have a direct question because we talked right before this podcast about introverts, know, people who are kind of shy. We’ll see it in this quote. You know, Angela, is kind of taken. Here’s my question. When you wanted to get into teaching, I mean, you knew that it’s a big responsibility, right? You have to be a leader of a community. You got to be out in front of people, et cetera, et cetera. How did you approach the discipline? What motivated you about it?

Angela Escanilla (03:25)

My biggest motivators were probably my teachers. There’s a few teachers in mind, obviously one who is a really great friend of mine who leads our department, but another teacher was from my high school. She was my sophomore English teacher, Miss Cotty, she sort of helped me to kind of step outside of my comfort zone. Like she invited me to do this slam poetry extracurricular activity after school and it was one of those things where I just kind of I really didn’t want but then I brought my friend along with me so that was also kind of nice to have that support system and so I would have to really give it to really like a lot of my friends who’ve always supported me as well as my teachers who sort of seen something in me that that’s really inspired me.

Steve (04:18)

She pushed you into doing poetry in front of people, right? See, that’s harder than teaching. Would you agree, Dan? I would feel uncomfortable doing that.

Angela Escanilla (04:21)

Yeah. Yes.

Dan (04:31)

Yeah, that’s really coming out of your shell to be able to do that in public. That’s great. What was it, if we can really drill down on this, what was it that turned your mind towards taking that risk?

Angela Escanilla (04:34)

Well. I just knew that at the end of the day I would have regretted it if I didn’t do it. And so that was sort of like just the one thing I just kept telling myself. That you’ll regret it if you don’t at least give it a shot.

Steve (05:03)

You looked far enough in the future, knew yourself enough to say, I’m not going to like me if I don’t. I think that way. I have to say, I think we’re foreshadowing the quote a little bit, but I think that same way. Sometimes I’ll do something because I won’t be able to stand looking at myself later. That’s a motivation.

Angela Escanilla (05:20)

Yeah, it’s just about taking that leap and hoping for the best.

Dan (05:35)

Yeah, let’s actually let’s jump into the quote because we can weave in more of our personal experiences in getting at the quote itself. And is one that doesn’t have an author. We couldn’t, it’s one of those you just shows up on the Internet that sounds really, really good. And then nobody exactly knows who delivered it. But it has a lot of wisdom. So I’m going to read it twice and then we can continue our exploration of our experiences in our past. So here we go. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. And so there you go. I mean, Angela, you have the first example of this. And this really spoke to you. Can you think of any other good examples, either Steve or Angela, of this that speak to the claim of this? What is it saying?

Angela Escanilla (06:32)

Yeah

Steve (06:44)

I was gonna say, how would you put it in your words, Angela? What is this? What’s the claim here?

Angela Escanilla (06:54)

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is trying and failing is better than not trying at all. You know, you don’t really want to live your life full of regrets.

Steve (07:04)

That’s what I was thinking, the regret. And it’s that opportunity.

Dan (07:04)

And in–

Angela Escanilla (07:07)

Mm-hmm.

Steve (07:11)

I’m thinking of the psychology of people now. How there’s very risk averse people and there’s people that will regret not doing something that they wanted to do because they know that they got scared and that they didn’t believe in themselves enough. They’ll come up with whatever justification or reason, but they’re all unpleasant.

Angela Escanilla (07:14)

Yeah.

Steve (07:41)

And just missing out on something, know, FOMO. This is really FOMO.

Angela Escanilla (07:45)

Right. I think social media does play a big part in it as well. Like when you see so many people at new restaurants or trying different places, it kind of makes you feel like you’re, you know, feeling left out of something. And it sort of encourages you as well to try to do that same thing. It could be for better or for worse.

Dan (08:08)

Right, right. It can put you into bad situations and also contribute to new opportunities. Yeah, I was thinking, we were all thinking FOMO the same way. There’s a fear. The claim seems to be saying that, you know, fear of doing something and not doing it is gonna hurt more than just jumping in, taking the risk on faith and then failing. Just, to bring this to a very basic sports analogy. I love to play basketball. Taking a shot is this, you can’t go into taking that last second shot with fear. You have to just say, I’m gonna take this shot because if I don’t, I’m always gonna wonder, I could have made it and I was too afraid to try and I let my team down. So it’s better to just do it. I mean, that’s a simple way. I think a lot of kids could connect with this as well.

Steve (09:13)

I’m gonna pick out the word courage for a second. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. Courage, bravery, doing something, even though there’s a risk, there’s something about that that is driving this quote. And I don’t know if I’m ready for the counterclaim. I just feel the counterclaim building for a moment, but maybe I’ll even switch to an essential question for a moment. What is courage? And what kind of risks should we take? ‘Cause I think that there are some risks where I’m fine never doing it. You know, like I’m, I think it’s good. I’m never jumping out of a plane ever. I’m never getting in a helicopter ever. I will get into an airplane. Although I don’t like it, but I’m just kind of –

Dan (10:30)

Okay, let’s chew on the question then. What is courage is the question.

Steve (10:37)

I actually think the risk one is better. How do I know when I should take a risk?

Angela Escanilla (10:49)

That is a very, very weighted question. It’s hard, but part of me wants to say when it’s like a calculated risk, perhaps, like you really thought it through. I mean, definitely considering the consequences of that risk that you’re going to take, whether or not it’s worth it would be where I’m coming from.

Dan (11:19)

I like it. And for your example, Angela, with the poetry slam, right? That was a calculated risk to take or anything with public speaking, I think is maybe a calculated risk. And so if it’s calculated, then it’s worth taking. Then that begs the question, well, what is calculated? Hmm.

Angela Escanilla (11:47)

That I’m not sure.

Steve (11:51)

And of course, when you’re jumping out of a plane. My question I ask everyone that’s done that and or wants to do it is Why are you doing that? Because you could get hurt. So, what is it about jumping out of a plane that’s making this worth it. I get your poetry slam one Angela like the calculation and the thought that, you know, what if I don’t do this I could really limit my career. I could limit my development as a person. Those are risks that I personally think are pretty serious. The risk of jumping out of a plane is to lose your life. I guess they’re thinking, the risk is I’m not gonna have enough fun.

Dan (12:43)

Well, right. For people who’ve done this, Steve, it’s the thrill. Ashley, my daughter, has done this. Skydived. It’s thrilling. It’s amazingly thrilling and an incredible feeling to be floating through the air towards Earth. I don’t think I’m going to do it. That is, so the fear of missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to literally jump.

Steve (12:51)

Too bad.

Dan (13:12)

It’s overcoming that, the fear is still there, but you’re overcoming it with courage. So there is a personal satisfaction in overcoming a fear. So it’s not that people don’t have that fear, it’s that their fear is not strong enough compared to their courage to do it.

Angela Escanilla (13:34)

And I would also add that if it’s successful the first time, then you’re more inclined to do it again because you’re like, I’ve already done this before. I already know how to do it. But I would never skydive ever. I’m just really afraid of heights. But the way that I also saw this was that failure is really important when we’re trying to learn something. So how can we learn anything without effort spilling at something to begin with?

Steve (14:00)

Good, because we haven’t talked about trying and failing yet. Those are learning opportunities. Ideally, they’re also self-esteem killers. Let’s dance around the counterclaim just a tiny bit. I think a good counterclaim maybe against this is that, stick with what you’re good at. Because what you’re good at is something that is a gift that you can give to the world. And don’t try to chase all the thrills. If you try something and fail, take that as a sign that, you know, maybe I should have stuck kind of to what my comfort zone was or my zone, the things that I’m already good at. I’m just starting us off here. Don’t buy into my counterclaim yet. So I’m going to come up with a better one. But if anyone has any thoughts.

Dan (15:08)

I think that, go ahead, Angela, I wanna hear you, here, go.

Angela Escanilla (15:11)

Oh, sorry, I was going to say, you know, one possible counterclaim that people might have is that it’s okay to set boundaries and that you don’t have to rush at every single opportunity that’s given to Yeah, so that’s like at least one counterclaim. It’s also, I think it’s important for us to also understand where our boundaries are. Because a lot of us are still trying to figure that out.

Dan (15:37)

That’s great. Discernment, knowing when to take a risk, when not to. Not taking a risk, not having to show courage is setting good personal boundaries for yourself. And that’s healthy to do that. The other thing, to what Steve was saying, hurts more than trying and failing. Trying and failing things can hurt a lot for certain people who struggle with finding lessons within failure. So for the type of people whose self-esteem is hurt significantly when they fail, then they might want to not do that as much. But if people have the growth mindset or however you want to say it, some people thirst for failing, trying and failing things. That’s how they improve. For those people, you know, go at it. So I think the counterclaim, the truth of the counterclaim depends on the type of person you are and how you process failure.

Steve (16:46)

Of course, if failure bothers you, you just gotta do it a few times. Like desensitize yourself to it. But I guess there are personalities that really struggle and do lose. It’s almost not worth it. They lose so much in their self-esteem and their self-concept that you do wanna kinda help them with their strengths, you know, and make sure that they know what they’re good at and you give them positive feedback, you know, get them moving in the right direction. I guess some people would benefit from that.

Angela Escanilla (17:26)

And I think it’s also important that mentorship also exists because we need people to be pushed and we also need people to be the ones to do the pushing.

Steve (17:42)

Really good point because there’s so many different personalities and you need a mentor for every mentee. You know one size fits one. There’s a perfect person out there. Try to think of other essential questions.

Dan (17:56)

Steve, in a quick example, Steve, remember riding a bike? We brought this up on a few podcasts, an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. Going back to the claim, I was, Angela, growing up, I was one who constantly experimented and tried and failed and I needed multiple attempts and repeated exposure to failure in order for me to overcome things where Steve learned how to ride a bike. He’s a little bit less experimental and more kind of I’m going to watch this a little bit. I’m going to jump in when I’m yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So that was a little bit of a blend there. Now it’s not that you lack the courage. I think you were thinking

Steve (18:35)

I watch you fall, get to the point.

Dan (18:48)

I’m gonna watch someone else fail and get a free lesson.

Steve (18:52)

Don’t get me started. Like I wasn’t, nevermind. It worked out. We both know how to do it and I’ve fallen plenty of times on a bike. So I got paid back. But yeah, I guess it’s a learning style. You put it that way.

Angela Escanilla (18:53)

Or have you recalculated?

Dan (18:55)

That’s very calculated.

Steve (19:14)

Yeah, and don’t set yourself up, don’t beat yourself up for not wanting or not being ready or being afraid of doing something. You know, in a way that’s your spidey sense. You know, it’s your intuition. It’s your self-preservation. It might be your discernment that is keeping you away from something that you should be kept away from. You know, so I’m going to throw out another essential question, something like, how do we know? If we’re a coward or not.

Angela Escanilla (19:56)

I guess it depends on how you would define a coward, right?

Steve (20:00)

That’s you’re right. It’s going to get into all the criteria. Like what are you looking at doing that is making you think you’re a coward?

Dan (20:09)

And how do I know when not trying at all is the right thing to do? There are so many questions embedded in both parts of this. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing because again, sometimes not trying is the right thing to do because you have other things that you’re really good at. You kind of mentioned that Steve and that it’s a waste of time to do it. You know, I did someone else have something real quick before I just Angela, I’m thinking of like your classroom, you teach middle schoolers, right?

Angela Escanilla (20:53)

Yes.

Dan (20:55)

How does this quote connect to how you might talk with your middle schoolers about…

Angela Escanilla (21:08)

That’s a really great question because I always tell them that I like when they make mistakes. And that’s almost a direct quote. Almost every year I always kind of give them the speech about growth mindset and how it’s okay and that it’s important to fail. And so I feel like I see this a lot with the middle schoolers that I teach but also a lot of my colleagues who teach at the high school level that there’s this huge notion of not wanting to fail. And in this world of AI, it just sort of kind of goes into that too, that they use a lot of AI and that they don’t really want to use their brain muscles, perhaps because of fear of failure. So I do see this a lot, especially with the kids that I have post-COVID.

Steve (22:05)

They’re using AI more and more Angela to do things and they’re understanding how helpful it is?

Angela Escanilla (22:13)

Yes, and it’s also really a great teaching experience when they do get caught with AI to teach them why it’s not good to use it because a lot of their answers were not correct or they weren’t even answering the question to begin with.

Steve (22:30)

That’s great. We talk about, you know, back to the conversation technique, Angela, the quote, claim, counterclaim, essential question. We like thinking about it as something where you can’t get out of it as far as assessment. Like you can turn in all the AI you want for your homework. You know, can prepare your speech with AI, whatever, but actually being in an authentic conversation and having a voice and listening and then building on other people’s ideas. That’s something you have to show. You know, you can’t fake that one right now, which is why I think conversations, I mean, can you speak a little bit about just conversations in general and how you utilize them in class and you know, what are their benefits, et cetera? I’d love to hear that from you.

Angela Escanilla (23:31)

Yeah, absolutely. And I was actually going to add that once I started implementing the conversation, especially that format of claim counterclaim leading into the essential question, that a lot of the  answers were really genuine. And that they weren’t really using AI or any other technology to answer these questions. They were just kind of answering like decent human beings. And I feel like that’s how it should be because everything should be a conversation.

Dan (24:03)

That’s great. That’s great. all.

Steve (24:04)

And those are skills we need.

Dan (24:07)

Yeah, I was just gonna also say, Angela, that when we did the exit interview with you in the spring, you mentioned something really interesting that you found that the Teach Different method helped your quiet kids come out a little bit and say things and maybe take the courage to take some risks and to jump into things that they might otherwise not have. Do you wanna comment a little bit on that too?

Angela Escanilla (24:34)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it’s the vulnerability of it all that because we’re all being so vulnerable, myself included, that it’s okay for them as well. And so that was really cool. And especially, you know, even if they weren’t as talkative as other students, they were at least writing down their ideas. So there was also participation in that aspect.

Steve (25:00)

And this is actually really important, I think, because if you can engender a classroom or a group of people that are okay to be vulnerable, like if there’s a comfort there that they’re not used to, for instance, that will get participation. And I’m looking at the back at our quote. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. If you’ve gotten rid of the stigma of feeling vulnerable and you actually do feel comfortable in expressing yourself, you really don’t even have that. The fear doesn’t emerge. It’s more natural. And you have the courage and you have it almost innately.

Dan (25:50)

You have the courage. You have the courage.

Steve (25:56)

you’re not overcoming a fear, you actually just feel comfortable and here you go, you just shared a story about something very intimate around a bunch of strangers and you caught yourself. Like, my goodness, I didn’t know I had that in me.

Angela Escanilla (26:14)

Right, and I think it also helps to build empathy by really seeing different perspectives.

Dan (26:21)

And also you mentioned Angela, that did you find yourself feeding ideas into the conversation with your students? I mean, did you open up as they opened up?

Angela Escanilla (26:34)

You know, surprisingly, I think the first conversation, my students opened up more than I expected them to and more than I did, actually. So they, like them opening up their own ideas, encouraged me to do the same. So it works both ways.

Steve (26:49)

That’s really cool. As long as someone opens up, yeah, it doesn’t matter.

Dan (26:50)

That’s great. To get the courage from your students, that’s beautiful. It’s usually, we’re talking about it the other way around, right? The students are getting courage from us, but we gain it from them. That’s a nice symbiotic relationship.

Angela Escanilla (27:10)

Yeah, and I think it also helps to encourage ⁓ students to realize that they do have a voice. If they can see that they can encourage me to speak up, an adult, then they can do that for other adults, hopefully.

Dan (27:10)

Yeah.

Steve (27:26)

Then they learn those socialization skills that make them more employable and all the, I mean, in addition to being such a human skill, you know, being able to relate, it just makes you so much more ready to do anything.

Dan (27:41)

And back to Angela, you’re in the humanities. So writing and thinking and history and is a subject area that’s very conducive to conversations because it’s a very human experience to speak with one another about things. Yeah.

Angela Escanilla (27:58)

Yeah, I mean everything we do revolves around a conversation, revolves around debates. So, and just like, you know, having the whole starting with a quote, really especially enjoy it because it can apply to everything throughout history, current events, their own lives, ⁓ and it can be applied to everybody.

Steve (28:18)

Do you remember Jarvis Angela, the story of Jarvis at the beginning of how Teach Different started? This kind of idea for a quote, just because I needed to connect with the class the next day, right? I heard something so sad and tragic. Just had a podcast with Jarvis where he came up with his own quote. And we did it. That was a new one. You know, usually we’re searching for them, but I was going to ask just because did you find yourself wanting to come up with your own quote to fit it to something that you were teaching maybe? Or I always wonder what the backdrop is on how quotes are chosen. ‘Cause there’s probably so many different ways to do it.

Angela Escanilla (29:06)

I mean there are some times when I was introducing this with my students or doing this activity with my students where I would ask them how they would change some of the wording to change the meaning of it or the way that it could be seen as. So that was also like a really interesting take sort of like an added extension activity after we discussed the quote. That was actually really cool to see what my kids came up with.

Steve (29:31)

Great activity, just so great.

Dan (29:34)

And this is kind of next level, Angela, though. Once they get really good at it, you can have a few of them step up and actually lead the conversation. Now, that’s, you want to talk about the courage to jump in and take risks. But with the right kid, as you can just connect with me here, obviously, with the right kid at the right time, they could lead this with their peers with structure and support. So, I mean, that’s something to kind of put in your head, maybe try out.

Angela Escanilla (30:07)

Yeah, I mean, definitely I would love to try to implement this year, especially since last year was successful. And I have a lot of really great student examples to start that sort of as a beginning of the year, get to know you activities would even be better to try to establish that routine as early as possible. That way I can kind of get them to be in that leadership position to be able to lead conversations by themselves. That would be really great.

Dan (30:34)

You want your evaluator to come in during those experiences.

Angela Escanilla (30:39)

Exactly. 

Steve (30:42)

We joke, but we’re really not joking. It’s so perfect for an evaluation. The kids have to know the drill though, of course. You know what I mean, Angela? It’s got to be one of those. Okay, we get it. Very cool. This has been great. I mean, I love the quote. I love the quote. We’ve got a similar one by, I want to say Winston Churchill or something. The one about, it’s the courage to continue that counts. It’s not how many failures, it’s not how many successes. It’s the courage to continue that counts. Feels similar.

Angela Escanilla (31:23)

Yeah, when I was trying to find the person who set this code, I was trying to do all types of research. I couldn’t find one. But I saw so many different variations of it. So I was like, which one is it really?

Dan (31:36)

And what’s important are the ideas in it, not necessarily the author. So that’s great. This is one that middle schoolers, I elementary school kids could take to this. So that’s great. Missing an opportunity because you lack the courage to jump hurts more than trying and failing. Angela, it’s been a pleasure having this conversation with you and learning more about your background and your passions for teaching. Thanks again, you know, for participating in the spring and we’re looking forward hopefully to work with you moving forward. You’ve heard about our opportunities for you to be a shadow mentor for new people and you got that and I think you are interested in doing that. Okay, great. We are building this, you know, and we’re at a good spot. So it’s, very excited to have you on board. We need the right people on the bus and you are definitely.

Angela Escanilla (32:22)

Yes, yes, absolutely. I’d love to do that.

Dan (32:34)

One of the right people. So yeah.

Angela Escanilla (32:36)

Great, thank you so much and thank you again for having me.