The fact of the matter is that we (administrators, teachers, students) learn best by doing and inherit in this process no matter who you are is some sort of failure. It is how we react and evolve when faced with this phenomenon that defines us as educators and learners. If we are to support risk-taking behaviors in order to promote innovation then an environment has to be cultivated where we learn from our failures in order to grow and become better. As educators we must not be afraid to fail and it is essential that this is modeled for our students. Should failing to fail be promoted in schools today? If so then change and reform will be extremely hard to come by.
I agree that a culture of risk taking must be established within the school; however, it is important to remember, the school is but a reflection of those higher arching bureaucracies such as US dep of ed, state mandates, and local or board of ed (central office. So, even if there happens to be a progressive leader in the principal role, he/she is still faced with a challenge of fostering such a risk-taking culture within the school,if the over-arching theme is one of "not a time for failure or creative design". -elford
ReplyDeleteEric,
ReplyDeleteAgreed that the system of schools promotes avoidance of failure at all costs. The nature of the professional review, with its scripted pre-conference, observation, and follow-up conference implies that learning is a formal process that can be documented. The best observations are the casual, informal, non-judgemental ones that happen daily, when real learning is happening. That is also where the "failures" happen. Somehow the encouragement of risk-taking needs to balance the formal review process.
I like to use the analogy of skiing - if you are not falling, you are not learning.
Michael
Eric, I can't agree with you more. Earlier this school year I stumbled across the phrase "Dare to Fail." It is an adaptation of Robert Kennedy's quote “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” I looked at everything I was doing, and even though I was very successful, I wasn't doing everything I could for my students. Also, I had developed a safe environment for myself where the status quo and routine was the norm.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, I stumbled across the idea of the flipped classroom and mastery learning and suddenly my classroom radically changed. I happen to have a supervisor who trusts me and allows me to explore and invent as long as I am making strides to improve education. Since I ask my students to try new activities and labs all the time, shouldn't I be doing the same thing? As an administrator, the best thing you can do for your teachers is to establish an environment where they feel safe to fail. Let them know they will not be scrutinized for doing something different and innovative and they will push themselves to do more.
Very true! We treat failure as... failure. Teachers need to provide a safe environment where risks are not only taken but encouraged. Tricky thing is that to learn from failure we need to fail. As teachers we never want to set our students up for failure and therefore it is a tough situation. To start we need to provide opportunities for innovation and encourage differentiation. If students are all doing the same thing, differences are clear and failure is more obvious and scrutinized. Encourage differences and diversity in every sense of the words. And don't be afraid to talk about your own failures and what you learned from them!
ReplyDeleteI believe there are two very important parts to "failure" that must be discussed. The "failure" of teachers in their practices must be supported, especially if they are taking risks and trying new things to hopefully benefit students. The other "failure" is that of students. They should not be insulated from responsibility and take accountability for their actions. Unfortunately, it feels like the students abuse the chances they are given to complete work, show understanding, or finish tasks. There is a way to encourage students to be self-advocates for their education and still hold them responsible for shortcomings. I really enjoy your insight and comments!
ReplyDeleteI think failing should be promoted in the context that we learn from our mistakes. Nothing too revolutionary here, but I agree that we have a system in place that avoids failure at all costs. At the same time, it is important to have some kind of compliance system that avoids recurring failure and pushes us to improve. This is why formative assessment is so important. Let students, teachers, and administrators fail in low-stakes environments so when the time comes, they can perform well in the high stakes environment. If we don't fail, or avoid it at all costs, then it may be difficult to change our current educational system to be more innovative. Recognizing when an innovation isn't going to work is key, which we can only do through the perspective we have gained from our past failures.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it is really reflective teaching and learning that is at issue here. I never feel completely successful after a lesson. In working with teachers and student teachers the dividing line between growth and stagnation to me is honest reflection and thoughtful adjustments. While we are all fearful of public failures (the private ones are a lot easier to manage), such failures provide fertile soil for the reflective teacher. I think experienced teachers can model this for newer teachers by talking about their failures and showing how honest reflection can offer rich rewards. Another aspect of this is learning how to be kind to ourselves while taking risks in the classroom. We ask our students to do this every day.
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