I Fail, You Fail, We All Learn. This is the second post in the “Innovative Teaching Challenge” series. To get every challenge sent to your inbox, sign up here. Ahh, the sweet smell of failure. As students we were taught that failure was a bad thing, and as adults we are cautioned against “trying” anything that might lead to failure. Yet, as I look at my own life (and probably when you look at your life), failure has played a huge role in who I am today…and how I got here. I Fail… One of my biggest failures ever was as a college student. In the middle of my sophomore year I had a 1.6 GPA and something had to change. Then in the midst of all this “failure” something clicked.
There weren’t too many classes in my entire educational journey that I ever cared about. However, this made me finally realize that “playing the game” was really making it work for you. We Fail… This is what upsets me about much of our current educational system. And the cycle continues to spin. I know we can do better. We All Learn. Take a Risk. What if you are wrong? What if it’s Sharpie and you. can’t. erase? What if nobody else agrees? What if people speak out against your idea? What if your idea just doesn’t work? Yikes. It could be bad to be wrong. But, is being wrong worse than doing nothing? Nope.
2nd (and 3rd, and 4th) chances are vital. Want Students to Succeed? Let Them Fail - Education.