"Do or Do Not, There is No Try!"

This is the second post with a Star Wars Theme. You can read the other one here.


Learning is hard work. When done right it can be frustrating, time-consuming, maddening, headache making...work.

There are many mentors throughout the Star Wars movies. Yoda mentors Luke Skywalker, Obi Won mentors Anakin Skywalker. Darth Sidious who mentors Anakin on the dark side of the force. In The Force Awakens, it is mentioned that Kylo Ren was once mentored by Luke, and it looks as if going into episode 8, Rey may get a chance to have Luke as her mentor.

Mentors are the backbone to personal and professional growth.

Star Wars Episode II- Attack of the Clones

Mentors have an important role to play in the growth of education. A true mentor must be more than a friend. A mentor must be able to build a relationship, care deeply about the other person's success, share in their triumphs as well as their failures, and be able to say things frankly and honestly.

Being able to say things frankly and honestly takes practice. It does not usually feel comfortable, and sometimes you have to remind yourself that you are an adult and can do this! The growth seen from honest conversations is immense.

 In Episode II, Padme tells Anakin, "All mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults than we would like. It's the only way we grow." We grow when someone holds the mirror up to our face and forces us to see what others see. We can no longer hide behind our false impressions of ourselves or our own hubris. With the right mentor, we are forced to see what others see, forced to see our flaws, and then given a choice to improve or ignore.

This isn't to say we should all go around giving the "brutal truth" to our colleagues. Mentorship requires a certain kind of finesse when holding the mirror up to their mentee, but without examining our faults and flaws we can not grow.

The force is strong with this one!

With all the excitement surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens it is only fitting to have a couple of Star Wars themed posts! (Be on the lookout for the next post in a few days!)

Going back in the story, during Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace, a young Anakin Skywalker is a slave on the planet Tatooine. Even though Anakin is a nine year-old slave, he has impressively built a protocol droid, C-3PO, and is a skilled podracer. 

Thinking about this from an educational and developmental standpoint, it is amazing what this nine year old boy can do! He has had no formal schooling or training, yet given a problem and a reason to learn, he has. This is problem-based learning rooted in real world application. Educators need to give students the ability encounter problems, and then work to fix or improve those problems. This type of approach motivates students to learn and requires them to develop and use critical thinking skills. 

A student can learn the rules of grammar, but that does very little for him/her unless they can use them to effectively communicate. A student can memorize history facts/dates, that does very little until they can use that information to see patterns or cause/effect and make informed decisions. He/she can memorize an algorithm, but that won't help them in a job until they can apply it to situations.  By giving students a problem to solve, he/she will learn the grammar, history, math, etc that will help to solve the problem. They will be able to apply the grammar, history, math, etc and isn't that the point of education? To help students learn the background knowledge they will need to apply to decision making in their adult life! 

If Anakin* can do such high ability things with little more than a problem to solve, and perseverance, our students can with teachers who are willing to step outside of their comfort zone. Think of what students can do if they were only given the chance! 

* Anakin also had "the force" working for him, but hey, our students have gifted, talented, dedicated, and passionate teachers in their corner!