What can a designer teach an educator?

Fred Brooks. Never heard of him. But I just read this interview in Wired magazine, Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything, and I found his thinking to be fascinating. Here's a few snippets that caught my attention:

• "You can learn more from failure than success."
• "Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers."
• "The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money. For example, in a NASA moon shot, money is abundant but lightness is scarce; every ounce of weight requires tons of material below. On the design of a beach vacation home, the limitation may be your ocean-front footage. You have to make sure your whole team understands what scarce resource you’re optimizing."

It seems to me that every one of those quotes has something to say about learning and/or education. With the exception of the first quote, I just don't know what it is yet. How might they translate into my world?

Great education does not come from great __________; it comes from great ________. What should go in those blanks? Processes, Learners? Teachers, Learners? Answers, Questions? Schools, Experiences?

And what about the last quote? What is the scarcest resource in our educational system today? Money? Talent? Maybe it is TRUST. Kids don't trust adults. Teachers don't trust kids. Board members don't trust educational experts. And nobody trusts teachers. Maybe that is something we need to be maximizing. Just a thought.

Anyway, Brooks seems like someone I ought to be reading; and, apparently, he has a new book out. Great. Something else I don't have time for. I wonder if it is out on audio ... ?