Be it a bombed reading quiz or a botched science experiment, at some point every student fails in school. But students with a greater fear of failure are more likely to interpret normal academic challenges as severe and have less to cope with academic stress.
In the last few years, 糖心动漫vlog Jennifer Boogaart in Arkansas, Alicia Wiechert in Illinois, and Doreen Kelleher in Massachusetts have all noticed a noticed a significant rise in perfectionism among their elementary students鈥攁 鈥渒ind of a mini-pandemic,鈥� said Boogaart, a K-5 gifted enrichment teacher at John Tyson Elementary School of Innovation in Springdale, Ark. A rising social media focus on 鈥渃urating鈥� children鈥檚 activities to focus only on success and accomplishments exacerbates the problem, they say.
鈥淎s parents, teachers, coaches, I think we all try to protect kids from failing鈥攚e try to get them exact directions to follow and so on鈥攂ut by doing this, we鈥檙e preventing kids from failing and learning from their mistakes,鈥� said Wiechert, a K-4 library and information specialist at Romona Elementary School in Wilmette, Ill.
That鈥檚 why the three 糖心动漫vlog are now deliberately introducing students to failure as part of a larger goal of showing them how to reduce stress and gain academic resilience.
Boogaart, Wiechert, and Kelleher, a 4th grade teacher at Proctor Elementary School in Topsfield, Mass. are among 50 teachers nationwide piloting 鈥�,鈥� a program developed by entrepreneurship 糖心动漫vlog Lowey Bundy Sichol, author of the children鈥檚 series, From an Idea to ..., and Chic Thompson, executive director of What a Great Idea (WAGI) Labs, a nonprofit social incubator group for kids鈥� ideas. Students in the program read and discuss setbacks in the lives of successful inventors and businesses. The teachers also held 鈥溾�� and longer events in which students tackled difficult, iterative projects and discussed how they learned from multiple attempts.
鈥淭eachers are setting the classroom culture around failure, and it鈥檚 important that they are de-stigmatizing the word鈥攑ositioning an action as a failure, not the student as a failure,鈥� said Kathyrn Bateman, an assistant education professor at Penn State Harrisburg.
Bateman is not part of the Let Me Fail project, but works with teachers in the Northeast to develop K-8 engineering lessons in which students 鈥渇lip failure鈥� by analyzing testing data, finding creative solutions to problems, and improving designs.
When Boogaart asked her students to make paper airplanes from scratch, without directions, and let themselves fail, she got a 鈥渃lass full of blank stares.鈥�
鈥淭hey were like, 鈥榊ou want us to not do good?鈥欌�� recalled Boogaart. 鈥淎nd I said yes. ... I just talked to them about how mistakes aren鈥檛 failures. They make you more creative and smarter and unstoppable.鈥�
Boogaart鈥檚 classes went through multiple rounds of attempting to build their airplanes and reflecting on what went wrong. In the first few rounds of reflection, she said, students tended to focus on their feelings of frustration, anger, or insecurity. But after a few more attempts, students鈥� reflections turned more to diagnosing their mistakes and brainstorming ways to improve.
This iterative learning can both build student resilience and memory, according to Thompson, a former designer for Disney.
鈥淲hen I failed and then learned how to do something that worked, I remembered it,鈥� he said. 鈥淔ailure anchors learning for me, where just reading about it and raising my hand never did.鈥�
Wiechert introduced one 4th grade class to thinking about failure in a social studies lesson using 鈥渙pposite brainstorming.鈥� Students created the 鈥渨orst possible treehouse,鈥� then talked through why different pieces would be problematic and how to improve the design. 鈥淚t got them to think about ideas they wouldn鈥檛 have thought about,鈥� she said.
The project proved so popular last year that the school has planned a full day of designed-to-fail activities this year as part of the science curriculum for all 4th graders.
It鈥檚 important, however, not to 鈥渃heerlead鈥� or romanticize failure, said Matthew Johnson, an associate teaching professor at the Penn State College of Education, who studies teacher feedback.
When students struggle or make mistakes on an assignment or project, Johnson found teachers often focus on managing students鈥� frustration or giving the correct answer rather than asking them to rethink their work.
鈥淭eachers have to worry about getting through this huge amount of stuff, and so a lot of times their response is like, 鈥極K, move on. We鈥檝e got to go,鈥欌�� Johnson said. But, 鈥渋f failure is the end point, it鈥檚 not a good thing. Helping kids to identify what didn鈥檛 work, why it didn鈥檛 work, and then giving them space to think through how to make it better is super important.鈥�
Boogaart agreed that time鈥攐r lack thereof鈥攊s a factor in why perfectionism seems to have expanded. 鈥淲e just don鈥檛 have time to go back and fix mistakes,鈥� she noted. She has started saving more time after every assignment for students to think through their mistakes and ways to avoid them in the future.
Kelleher, the Massachusetts 4th grade teacher, now keeps a 鈥渇ailure wall鈥� in which students can post mistakes and what they learned from them.
鈥淚 saw so much growth in the kiddos, especially the ones that before, couldn鈥檛 put a pen to paper because they were so fearful ... that鈥檚 not good enough,鈥� Kelleher said. 鈥淚 just wanted to break through that mindset and say, 鈥榮ee, it鈥檚 OK. Actually, this mistake is going to teach us something.鈥欌��
Since starting to actively discuss and practice failure in her classes, Boogaart said she has seen a huge difference in students鈥� willingness to get started on a challenging assignment because now, 鈥淭hey know it鈥檚 fine,鈥� she said. 鈥溾�業鈥檓 going to fail, but I鈥檓 going to come out on the other side of this.鈥欌��
