Dealing with Failures

A few years back when I was involved in helping to create a charter school focused on business, we felt strongly about two things: first, bringing business to education and second, educating businesses. In looking at today, I recognize that we had failed at both of these goals.

One of the attempts to bring business to education involved setting up individualized computer work stations and private cubicles for students. This resulted in a great deal of unwarranted autonomy for unprepared high school students. As far as attempts to educate business, well, let’s just let it suffice to say that that didn’t go so well either.

Failures are a part of growth and every failure helps us learn lessons or gives us new direction. As a result of my failures at that project, I became a more realistic goal setter. I also found new direction, that helped me become who I am today.

We as teachers come across a lot of situations where our students face failure. It may be a game, an expected behavior or a test. How do we ensure that each of these experiences results in growth for our students? What kind of response can help turn a seemingly bleak situation into a learning opportunity?

Helping students talk about and analyze the causes of their failure empowers them and enables them to think logically. It helps them understand that their actions eventually add up to a result. This is true of success too. Talking about what helped them succeed will help them repeat those actions, and be successful again.

How do you help students turn failure into success?

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