According to the Web site, Star Wars, in the movie “The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker must retrieve his space craft from a lake (swamp?1) where it has crashed, he receives guidance from Yoda, an alien who lives on the planet where the craft has crashed. Luke agrees to “give it a try,” but Yoda interrupts and tells him, “No. Do or do not. There is no try.”
Do or do not. There is no try.
I think Yoda might have had some behavioral training. If one thinks of actions in the way that behaviorists think of them, one realizes that there is no “try.” Trying is not an action, not a behavior.
Trying is a myth foisted on us by the language of mentalism. As children, we are taught to “try.” “Try the broccoli. You might like it!” “I know that looks hard, but you can do it if you try.” “Ahh, come one. Give it the old college try.” Or of course, “Try harder.”2 But, trying is not sufficient. One either eats the broccoli or does not, completes the hard task or does not, succeeds or does not.
I see implications here for teaching. In teaching, one does not “try” to teach. Remember that on Special Educational Today on 23 September 2026, we proposed a definition of teaching. A key idea in that earlier post was that there had to be outcomes. That is, the learner had to learn something. It might be a concept (a fact, a definition, etc.) or an operation (how to do something). One would only know whether one taught that something by examining the learners’ performance. They either learned or did not learn.
It follows that the teacher either taught or did not teach.
Hear Yoda? There is no “try to teach.” One might present a lesson (provide a demonstration, give some examples, explain a rationale, orchestrate an experience, etc.) and consider that a “try.” However, the proof is in the proverbial pudding. So, forget “try.” If the student learned as a result of that lesson, then one can say she or he taught.
Teaching is, fundamentally, communicating. The teacher’s job is to communicate something (concept or operation) to the student. If the student does not “get it,” has the teacher communicated? Heck no. The teacher did not communicate it. Try again! And do a better job of communicating.
There are a couple of corollaries of this idea that warrant mentions.
If teachers have to take the heat when students do not learn, they also get to take credit when students do learn. When students know something (say, the structure of the periodic table) or know how to do something (say, decode multi-syllable words accurately), teachers should get cheers, congratulations, accolades, and other benefits (let’s even say, “bonuses”) for their teaching.3
Acknowledging responsibility for one’s failures and resolving to improve outcomes are hallmarks of professionalism. To professionalize the education work force, it will be necessary not just to populate it with teachers willing to take responsibility for failures (and successes), but to empower them by ensuring that they have evidence-based tools and the necessary support from school administrators to implement them well. This is the sea-change about which Doug Carnine has been writing (see posts and 7 August 2026 and 25 August 2026 for starters).
Savvy readers may note the similarity between this view of teaching and the maxim, “If the child hasn’t learned, he has not yet successfully been taught.” Those savvy readers should get a smiling emoji on their notes. That maxim is having a resurgence with the wide discussions of the contributions of Sig Engelmann to education (see, e.g., “season two” of Sold a Story)4 Mr. Engelmann considered the maxim more than a saying. It was a guiding principle.
Footnotes
I have seen TESB, but I do not have the detailed knowledge about it to say into what Skywalker’s spacecraft has crashed. I hope that my colleague and resident knower of all things Star Wars, Michael K., will add a comment to this post so that we can all be properly informed.
“To try” seems like a topic that merits a post of its own! Just think of all the ways educators use “try” with regard to learners.
Remember, please, that outcomes should be specified in advance of learning. It’s not fair to identify some student competencies and declare that they are result of one’s teaching unless one can say, “At time one, these students performed in this way on these measures. I taught them these lessons. Now they can perform at this greater level on those same measures.” Review the definition of teaching (and forthcoming SET articles on objectives).
As closely as Engelmann is associated with that saying (and deservedly so), it was one of his colleagues who published it. That’s a story for another post….
