Make Friends with Failure

09/10/2013

Much learning does not teach understanding.
Heraclitus

"There is a major disconnect between schools and the real world on the notion of failure. School teaches us there is only one answer for every problem. And if we don't get it, we are a failure. This dissuades students from trying — they fear failure. We need to teach students how to make friends with failure."

This insight comes from Ainissa Ramirez in her Edutopia article, "Making Friends with Failure". Ramirez continues...

"Failure is hard for everyone, but interestingly, it's particularly hard for high-achieving students. They don’t know how to deal with this unfamiliar territory. It kills their spirit because their performance is so linked to their self-esteem....

"We need to give our children more opportunities to build a relationship with failure. In my estimation, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is a key way to do it. In STEM, failure is a fact of life. Experiments don't work out, the data doesn't look right, or someone knocks over your experiment."

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