There is a story floating around out there that I really like. When Thomas Edison was asked when he was going to give up on his fruitless attempts to invent a light bulb, after all, he had tried so many times unsuccessfully, he replied that he had not failed at all. He now knew of 10,000 ways not to create a light bulb. Brilliant response Thomas, absolutely brilliant.
That is exactly the response I would like to think all children would have. That may be a little unrealistic, especially in light of how we raise our children to see failure. We are born with a very strong resolve towards success. You don’t see many babies give up on their attempts to walk after they fall the first few times do you? Imagine if once we attempted to speak the first time and realized we made no sense, we quit in fear of failure – we would be in a fairly quiet world. We’re born to persevere in spite of failure, it’s why we achieve such unbelievable feats at such young ages. This resiliency towards failure seems to be nurtured out of us a little, especially in traditional classroom models. We strive for perfection – which is great if we do not fear the failure. We need to embrace the failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Carol Dweck’s Mindsets comes to mind as I think on failure. Those with a fixed mindset, those who see intelligence as inherent, must balk at failure as it would be a sign that they just aren’t smart enough to solve the issue at hand. Those with a growth mindset, those who see intelligence as malleable given effort, would be much more prone to see failure as a take off space for learning.
My point in all this, let’s ensure that we celebrate failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. In our classrooms, our homes and in society, celebrate failure as a chance to learn more.
FAIL, and keep on learning!
Dave
Be First to Comment