That Did Not Go as Planned

As Issa is getting ready to go to college, one of the things that has been making her worry the most is the fear of failure. We had the brilliant idea that they meant she just needed to experience failure. The surest place we could think of was the pottery studio. I got permission to take her in to the studio and give her a lesson. I intentionally started her with a huge lump of clay, which is insanely hard. This is his first throw:

She initially wasn't sure about the feel of the clay, but she definitely did not experience failure:

She kept working and tweaking--even when I told her that she could try something but it might cause the vase to collapse. She was thoughtful, and she opted to take the risks, and it paid off. It wasn't the lesson we were going for, but it was an important one nonetheless.