Tag Archives: failure

Learning Through Failure vs Failing to Learn

We talk a lot about learning through failure, but not a lot about failing to learn. When we fail because of lack of resources, lack of support, lack of knowledge, and/or lack of reflection, it’s just a failure. We do not necessarily learn.

When we talk about learning from failure, we are not actually talking about failure, we are talking about perseverance, and resilience, and tenacity. We are talking about coming up to resistance and unplanned outcomes and working through them to achieve a goal. We are talking about students learning significantly more than if everything went their way.

Who learns more, the person who follows the cookie-cutter curriculum and content-focused assessment, or the student who tries something really original, challenging, and maybe even epic? Even if both paths led to the coveted mark of an ‘A’, which path holds the most promise for deep learning?

We never want students to fail, but we also don’t want them to have such an easy path to success that the learning is forgettable. The struggle that potential failure can create is something that separates learning through failure from failing to learn.

(Image by Bill Ferriter)

Not-so-motivational quotes

I saw this ‘motivational quote’ on Twitter this morning,

STRIVE
for what you
BELIEVE IN
and you will
GET THERE
in no time

What a dumb load of crap! There are many things to strive for that, no matter how hard you strive, will take a long time to get to. Striving doesn’t make the target magically get closer. Striving needs to happen on those days when the target seems farther away, when things aren’t going in your favour, and when others believe you can’t do it. Believing you’ll get there ‘in no time’ is discouraging when things are going slowly despite your efforts.

Here is another one:

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Wow, I had no idea it was that simple! 🤣

This on actually sends the wrong message about success:

There are two rules for success…

1. Never reveal everything you know

The most successful people I know have been overly generous in their sharing.

This is just a little rant about some of the not-so-motivational quotes that seem to circulate on social media, disguising themselves as useful content. Posterized words on images meant to inspire, but not on target, littering my social media timelines. I’m just surprised how many I’ve been seeing lately.

The pain of inaction

“Most failures are one-time costs. Most regrets are recurring costs.

The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.
~ James Clear

When I look back on my life, I have very few regrets. I do not look back longingly, I look back fondly. I look at my mistakes as lessons, and my repeated mistakes as necessary because I wasn’t yet ready to learn the lesson. But when I do think of regrets, it is almost never for the things that I did, but rather the things that I did not do.

I regret not appreciating the outdoors enough on a beautiful day, not taking a photo, not spending more quality time with a lost friend or family member. I do not regret trying something challenging or new. Indecision or lack of action are far more likely to haunt me than a bad decision.

I remember reading once that this Shakespeare quote was wrong,

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”

In reality the hero confronts the same thousand deaths the coward does, except the hero actually faces them. Heroes are not ignorant of the same fears and worries of the coward, they just don’t cower at them.

“The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.”

—–

Image by MDARIFLIMAT

prepare to risk being wrong

Defining 5!  » COURAGE, CONFIDENCE, OPTIMISIM!  » Rick Fabbro
What is five?

I am no longer teaching in the classroom. My work now deals mostly with principals, vice-principals, and parents. I still see my basic job as the same. How do I find ways to help people approach their challenges with courage, confidence and optimism? How do I persuade principals and vice principals that they need to be prepared to risk being wrong in order to find ways of responding creatively to the particular context of their school?

via rickfabbro.com

– – – – –

A great blog post, well worth the read. I especially like the last sentence and think it could be changed in a number of ways:

How do WE persuade *principals and vice principals* that they need to be prepared to risk being wrong in order to find ways of responding creatively to the particular context of their *school*?

Replace *principals and vice principals* and *school* with:
• teachers and class
• students and class
• my children and family
• ourselves and lives

The last one doesn’t really fit grammatically but the reality is that fear of being wrong, of failure, is such a barrier to most people that people don’t even take ‘safe’ risks.

Related: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/beg-for-foregiveness/

and this video: