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Failure Preferred, Actually
Let's stop demonizing failure. It will be our undoing.
I'm not advocating that we celebrate low test scores or students' dashed dreams. I am calling for a shift in metaphors from failure as a student's foe to failure as a student's ally, and a move away from the presumption that giving students Fs and zeroes for inadequate performance is the best way to promote their self-discipline.
Failure can teach us in ways that consistent success cannot. Wandering down blind alleys, fumbling through half-baked ideas, and mixing the wrong ingredients often yield new insights. This is the stuff of scientific, mathematical, literary, and societal progress.
Our civilization advances because of failures. Medicine, construction, dentistry, investments, culinary arts, and space travel are some of the fields that have improved dramatically due to insights gained through past failures. In some cases, there was a horrific outcome of these failures: people died. But what an even greater loss to never have learned from those mistakes and taken steps to make sure they never happened again. Automobile companies crash cars on purpose so they can make the car more successful-safer for human passengers. Failure here leads to the better outcome.
Take a look at This We Believe, Turning Points 2000, or the online research at http://www.nmsa.org/. Middle level students are in prime exploration mode. They require ample opportunities to wrestle with ideas, not have those ideas spoon fed to them. They should feel invited to experiment and secure to fail in the middle of class or at home.
Making Failure Okay
Unfortunately, in many middle schools, students consider academic struggle as a sign of weakness. Instead, let's make it okay to fail in the pursuit of learning. One of the most vivid ways we can do this is to model it. We set up real situations in which we do not know answers or how to solve problems-really not know something, not just fake it. Then we find the answer or solve the problem constructively in front of students so they see what it looks like to not know something, to handle it wisely, and to remain a respected individual in the community.
Many middle school students do not push themselves to explore different talents...