Failure IS Part of the Process

Do you ever watch a football game post conference and get tired of hearing the losing coach talk about the team going through "the process"? I know that I certainly do, especially when it is your team that has lost. We are a society that is obsessed with being perfect and getting things done right the first time and we cannot appreciate the "the process" of learning from our mistakes. The fact of the matter is that nobody is perfect and to expect it is ludicrous. To continue the analogy, one might argue that football teams that go undefeated are perfect, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Teams that go undefeated have busted plays, blown assignments, and turnovers each and every game, but they learn from their mistakes quickly and that typically results in them overcoming adversity. While the score at the end of the game may result in a win for a football team, it was hardly perfect. My opponents may argue that a win is a win is a win, but this is a fairly nearsighted view of a much larger issue.

Education and football are apples and oranges, but the point here is that failing is okay if lessons are learned from this failure. I have written before about how Failure is the ONLY Option and I am sticking to my guns on this point. We put tremendous amounts of pressure on our students to get things right the first time, but this is a terrible lesson to teach our kids. A better lesson would be making students revise and redo our learning activities over and over until they get it right or demonstrate that they are proficient. At the end of a grading period, we could then accurately grade our students based on their progress.

Some might say that this is not preparing our students for the "real world" that they are going to encounter. They might say that if students don't do the work, turn it in on time, or even show up to class that they are going to get fired when the cruel world smacks them in the face. This is probably the true in some instances, but I would ask you adult readers if this has been the case in your experience? Have you ever forgotten to turn in paperwork to your supervisors, been late to work for a myriad of reason, or simply didn't come in to work because you were taking a mental health day? If so, why are we not extending this to our students? We expect them to be perfect at all times, when we ourselves know that this is impossible.

A better solution would be to extend our students some grace and understand that they are trying to find their place in this world. Let them fail over and over again and go through adversity until they figure it out. Stand by them and provide them guidance and encouragement, but don't do it for them and give them the easy way out. In the end, they may lose the game, but they will win in life. It's all part of the process.