Are YOU Afraid to Fail?

     When most people hear the word failure they automatically associate it with negativity and a lack of success. It is when you have not been good enough to do something. BUT, failure is only failure if you give up. I see failure as an opportunity to try again and to critically analyze what I did wrong. Yes, sometimes failure can hurt especially when it is something you have been working towards; however, failure does not have to be an end point. Failure can be the start of a new chapter.
     The real question is, how do we approach failure in schools in a way which teaches students that failure is a learning opportunity? The concept of failure becomes complicated when we incorporate evaluation and marking students. There has always been a debate about whether it is appropriate to fail a student but I do not wish to get into that debate with this particular post. I therefore do not mean that we should be giving the students an impossible assignment in order to have everyone fail, because that is not fair and it will only teach our students to hate teachers. Instead, give the students opportunities to experiment and then fail. I would like us to focus on the unmarked failures. The experimental failures where students are given opportunities to try new things and to fail in order to learn. Putting evaluation and marks aside, what can we do as teachers to give our students the opportunity to fail in our classes and to try again in order to improve? I believe these failure opportunities are an essential part of character education. Failure can teach resilience. Give them time to try new things and accept when something does not work. If they are doing a presentation and they are using a new technology to present it, and the technology is not working, give them the opportunity to recover. Allow them to still present, but allow them to realize that this is a learning opportunity.
     The trouble is finding moment to allow our students to fail and creating an environment where there is no fear of failing. Start by creating a community within the classroom. As a prospective drama teacher, this is always one of the first things I try and do in a classroom. In order for my students to feel comfortable trying new things, they need to feel like they are in a safe environment where they will not be bullied or made fun of for their mistakes. Creating a safe environment is extremely important when you are asking your students to welcome failure into their lives. You also must allow time for your students to experiment and discover on their own. This will allow your students to potentially fail in a safe environment. It also provides opportunity for them to learn how to recover and carry on from those mistakes. We will create intelligent risk-takers. This will not only help our students in the classroom setting but also in life.

     Nothing in life is perfect, and we will never have everything go our way. Life happens between all of these assignments we give our students. Not every brain understands things the same way. Part of what school does is equip students for their lives outside of the classroom, and part of life is making mistakes. If we teach our students that they need to try new things, and therefore make mistakes, yet we teach them that mistakes are terrible things then we teach our students to fear failure, and in turn, to fear trying new things. Many people are comfortable with singing in the shower where nobody can hear them, but how many of those people will sing in public. People take risks when they are on their own but are often afraid when they are in the eyes of others. School is a public place with a public gaze. People are afraid to fail because they know others are watching and judging. I want to encourage everybody to go outside of their comfort zone (both students and teachers). There are many great inventions today because people decided to push through and learn from their failures. There are many authors, actors, and musicians who were told they were terrible at what they do, but they took the criticism and became something great. We need to teach our students to also become something great and help them realize that part of the journey there is failing. We can no longer fear failure.