Do Kids Need to Fail to Succeed?

This week's article summary is Why Have So Many Accepted the Idea That Kids Need to Fail More.

The article focuses on the different impact the words ‘failure’ versus ‘mistake’ can have on student attitudes about the process of learning 

As I read the article, I found myself in the camp that prefers to use the word ‘mistake’ as I think kids too easily may consider the word ‘failure’ from a Fixed Mindset finite and hopeless manner, rather than a step toward progress and eventual success. To me, the word ‘mistake’ implies I can fix it, will try again and will get better through effort and practice—hence, the Growth Mindset attitude teachers try to instill in our students.

Whether teachers use ‘mistake’ or ‘failure’ with students, we all need to create and sustain a classroom culture where experimentation is the norm and where students understand that growth and progress rarely occur in a smooth trajectory and are more often fraught with fits, starts, and regressions. Because we have experience in the classroom and in our lives, we are the wise sages of our classrooms.

Telling our students about the struggles we have with learning something new will help them maintain their confidence and build their resilience as they inevitably encounter obstacles.

.Joe

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Is it important to allow students to fail in class — or not to fail? 

How much should teachers allow kids to struggle before helping them solve a problem or understand a concept? 

These may seem like simple questions, but the answers are complex.

A Texas high school teacher wrote in her blog that she has a large quote on the wall above the whiteboard that says, “In this class, failure is not an option. It’s a requirement.” As she blogged,  "As my students started to learn that first day, I have this quote hanging in my classroom, not because I have a desire to see any of my students fail the class, but as a constant reminder of the powerful learning that occurs when people have to (or are given the opportunity to) struggle through challenging material and fail a few times along the way."

A California teacher has a different take, writing that there is a big difference between failing and making mistakes and that it is important for teachers to help students understand the difference. He wrote: "Failure for a student, I would suggest, is the experience of not making progress towards their key hopes and dreams. One of the many jobs we teachers have, then, is to help them see that challenges they might face are just mistakes, which the dictionary defines as 'an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.' Mistakes are things that students can fix — with support — in a reasonable amount of time and without an unreasonable amount of effort."