One of the hardest parts of teaching for me is watching my students fail. I take it personally. If my students fail, then I feel I have failed as a teacher, even when logically I know that it’s not always my fault. Seeing my students fail gets me down.
I had a college professor who told us that if our students fail, we should think of it as something that we did wrong. We should take the responsibility as teachers. He also added that yes, sometimes it really is the students’ fault, or some outside force beyond our control, but in his opinion the best attitude to take as a teacher was to assume fault for our students’ failures. That one statement from him has stayed with me and shaped my teaching philosophy. In general, I believe it’s best to focus on the things that we can control. We can’t control what our students do or don’t do. We can control how we teach.
However, I also believe that the ability to fail well is incredibly important for our students. Learning to deal with failure helps us build resiliency and leads to increased growth and strength. Students have to fail at some point or they will never reach their full potential.
I have seen educators on both sides of the spectrum. There are teachers and administrators who believe we should never allow students to fail as well as those who have no problem with students failing, who take pride in it, even. I don’t think either extreme is beneficial for students. While we certainly can’t – and shouldn’t – keep students from ever failing, we can create ways for them to fail safely.
What is “Safe Failure?”
“Safe failure” requires two conditions. First, students need to understand that failures do not define their identity or their worth. Second, students must have support to recover from a failure and use the experience to grow.
Carol Dweck’s book Mindset is so well-known and influential that it almost feels unnecessary to even mention it, but the ideas in the book are crucial for teachers and students to understand. To briefly summarize, Dweck discusses two different mindsets, fixed and growth. A person with a fixed mindset believes that his/her abilities are set and cannot change. A person with a growth mindset believes that his/her abilities can be developed and improved with effort. A fixed mindset makes us believe that if we don’t succeed immediately, we never will. We shy away from challenges because we don’t want to fail. A growth mindset helps us to embrace challenges and overcome failures. For whatever reason, most people develop a fixed mindset in at least some areas of their lives, but we can change that once we recognize it and strive to make those changes. As teachers, we need to encourage a growth mindset in our students as much as possible. Their intelligence is not fixed; they can get better. It just takes time and effort.
Students are often afraid of failing because to them it means that they are failures. Their failures become part of how they see themselves, how they think others see them. It becomes part of their identity. We can combat this by creating an environment where each student feels valued, regardless of their accomplishments or failures.
How do you do that? I’ve found that the best way for me to do it is to write my students notes, telling them individually what I appreciate about them and thanking them for their contribution to my class. Writing works well for me, but the idea is to find a way to show the students that you know them, care about them, and value them as members of the group.
The second part of safe failure is also related to a growth mindset. As teachers, we need to support our students through their failures and help them understand that failure is only one part of the learning process. Too often failure seems like the end. Failure on a test results in a bad grade and it’s too late to go back and change it. We can’t let failure be the end.
I always allow my students to retake tests; if fact, I encourage it. They can retake any test as many times as they want, but only after they come in and get help from me. I want to sit down with them individually and make a plan on how to improve. In some cases, I sit down and practice a section of music with them. Sometimes I give them an assignment to go home and work on something on their own for a few days. For most students, they just need a little extra help and then they pass with no problem. Some students have to work hard and try multiple times before they get it. In every case, we discuss the areas where they need work and we make a plan together on how to get them passing.
That extra support is crucial for safe failure. We can’t just say “Better luck next time” and expect our students to take the note and grow from it. They need a plan to improve, and they probably aren’t capable of making a plan without at least some help from a teacher. Students also need to know that they aren’t alone. They need to know we’ll be there for them, as many times as it takes for them to ultimately succeed.
But what if they still fail?
No matter how hard we try, there will always be those students who fail in spite of our best efforts on their behalf. There will always be students who don’t try. There will even be the occasional students who simply can’t do the work at this point in their lives. Even though I know I’ve done everything I can for them, I still take it personally. It still hurts me to see them fail. I’m glad it does, because it means that I care. I try to take those experiences as opportunities to grow and improve as a teacher. Maybe I can’t help this particular student, but maybe the things I learn from this experience will help me help the next student. Maybe I’ll learn a different way of explaining something. Maybe next time I’ll be more empathetic, or come up with a better support plan.
Students aren’t the only ones who need to learn to fail safely. Teachers do, too. Maybe the best way to help our students learn how to fail is to learn it ourselves.
Today’s Challenge
Brainstorm some ways that you can help your students fail safely.
Bonus challenge: If you haven’t read the book Mindset yet, go find a copy and read it.