In the world of education, there is one letter that stands apart from the rest. One letter that makes students shudder with terror... the dreaded F. This horrifying letter stands for the word "failure". What is it about this word that makes students so terrified?
In our second lecture, teaching assistant Gianluca made some excellent points focusing on the positive aspects of failure. He explained to us that as an educator, we must understand what failure looks and feels like. This will help us to become empathetic to those students who may struggle a little more than others. By always succeeding we are actually doing a disservice to our future students. We must figure out a way to allow our students to learn from their mistakes or failures and keep striving towards a level of success (Personal Communication, 17 September 2015).
http://seanwes.com/podcast/085-failure-does-not-exist/
As you can probably guess based on the fact that I am a student in Concurrent Education, I was, and still am, an academically inclined student. Personally, I have not faced much failure in classroom activities. However, I have struggled in other areas of life, as I'm sure we all have. Since I do not have much experience with educational difficulties, I am going to have to work hard at being empathetic to my students needs. It will be a learning curve for me as well to apply strategies that are effective in boosting my students self confidence.
In her article Making Friends with Failure, Ainissa Ramirez discusses how to build up our resilience against failure. Children are naturally curious. They grow through questioning and risk-taking. This natural curiosity often dies when put in a classroom setting. All of a sudden, students are becoming afraid of silly things such as sounding dumb or getting the wrong answer. We, as educators, must make the learning environment comfortable for our students. It is crucial that students understand that "if you learned something from the experience, you did not fail" (Ainissa Ramirez, 2013).
Students must approach their learning with a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Someone with a growth mindset believes that they can develop their talents and abilities through practice, slowly working away towards their goals (Drake, personal communication, 17 September 2015). Drake, Reid and Kolohan (2014) expand upon this idea that "students with a growth mindset view failure as a temporary condition because they believe that their abilities can improve with persistent effort; they welcome tackling challenges and overcoming difficulties as an opportunity for learning, and they see practice as an effective strategy to achieve eventual success." In simpler terms, every one of us has the potential to be successful, it just may take a little more time and effort for some than for others. There are thousands of examples of failure that turned into success. Many famous, successful people have had to try and try again in order to get where they now are. As world renowned basketball player Micheal Jordan once said:
"Some want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." - Michael Jordan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_eKV3SzwE&list=PLnah-hqu5MaQY5t2GjBAwt9E7iJFYPsOA&index=5
I am going to end my thoughts today with a few wise words from Ainissa Ramirez (2013): "To succeed, we must make friends with failure. Failure makes you a better, kinder, stronger and wiser human being." All in all, the point I am trying to make is that you should never give up!
References
Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., and Kolohon,
W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum
and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21st-century
learner. Canada: Oxford
University Press.
Horton, N. (n.d.). Failing Forward: 7 Stories of
Success Through Failure [online article]. Retrieved from http://breakingmuscle.com/sports-psychology/failing-forward-7-stories-of-success-through-failure
Plasticfantastic777. (2010, March 1). Keep
Moving Forward! [Video File]. Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_eKV3SzwE&list=PLnah-hqu5MaQY5t2GjBAwt9E7iJFYPsOA&index=5
Ramirez, A. (2013). Making Friends With Failure
[online article]. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/learning-from-failure-ainissa-ramirez
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ReplyDelete(Sorry fixed a typo from the original...) Nicole, I really enjoyed reading your blog post. The topic, failure, is definitely something that is very personal and relatable for students as well as educators. I really like how you discussed your own experiences as a student and how they will impact your future teaching style. I thought that you mentioned struggles outside of the classroom was also really important. Grades are not the only way one can feel as though they are failing or are not enough. All students have a variety of experiences outside of the classroom that they bring to their studies and their relationships with peers. Feelings of failure from outside the classroom will strongly impact the way a student engages with their learning. I think that you could expand on how a growth mindset could specifically impact students’ social skills, mental health and general well-being in addition to be an important part of acquiring academic resiliency. You could also consider looking into ways in which teachers can effectively familiarize their students with failure because as I reader I am interested in the theory and practice of this important life lesson. I also really enjoyed the link you shared about the famous and successful people. I think that many people see successful people and think that it was easy; they do not see the long and strenuous road, with many pitfalls, that they took to get to that level of success. This link really enabled me as the reader to consider the number of failures these individuals could have experienced and how essential the growth mindset is to becoming successful. I am looking forward to reading your next blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole, Thank you so much for your blog post. It is really quite up-beat and inspirational. I especially like the bright colours of your blog and the highly attractive visuals and layout. Particularly that critical work that you referenced by Ramirez really showed the somewhat stigmatized idea of failure in an interesting light. I think, as prospective teachers, it's important to look at failure in extremely positive terms. While I think that failure, or flunking OUT of the system entirely should not be an option -- through early intervention and support, failure in small things should definitely be alright in order to prepare students for the outside world. But overall, this blog is definitely not a failure! In fact, it's wonderful! I look forward to hearing more about your educational philosophy and the personal experiences that have led you thus far!
ReplyDeleteHey Nicole, amazing post on failure! I really like the visual layout of the blog, and the different perspective on failure. Also, how you intertwined course material into your post was helpful. All to often we are told failure is the end of the world, but in fact failure should be recognized as an attempt. That being said, what defines failure? Is academic failure different from other failures? Looking forward to your next post!
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