Aspiring for Mediocrity

I have expressed my feelings about failure multiple times, but I feel another blog dedicated to it is warranted. In fact, it was after a recent conversation with my good friend, Nathan Eklund, that the ring of failure was in the air again. We were discussing the change process as it relates to building a powerful school culture with rock solid relationships among all stakeholders. Nathan and I reflected on my first couple of years as a high school principal and we talked a lot about learning from past failures.

It was in that moment that I realized that in education we spend a lot of time teaching our students to get things done correctly the first time. This is evident in our grading systems, our behavior models, and our overall educational structure. We expect students to get things done correctly the first time. The student must learn to achieve assonance instead of dissonance, thus resulting in mediocrity. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we are doing this intentionally or consciously. Instead, we are falling in line with those educational professionals who came before us and we are trying to maintain the status quo. History has taught us that the modern education system that we currently know was founded upon principles of the assembly line. We needed to develop a way to get a massive number of students educated in an efficient manner so that they can become positive and productive citizens. In the process, we streamlined education, but we took away a lot of ability for natural thought and experimentation.

Education has evolved (or devolved depending on how you look at it) to where students show up to school, regurgitate information, stay out of trouble, seek straight A's, and perform well on the ACT/SAT. If you follow this formula, the likelihood of you getting in to college goes through the roof. What is missing from this equation is the risk of failure and learning from it. The key part of that statement is LEARNING from failure.

I will admit that I was guilty of expecting perfection from my students when I was in the classroom. They either did the work or their grade suffered. The problem with this line of thinking was that I was making it about the work rather than the learning. I was taking the discovery out of education and was expecting assonance from my students and wanted them all to be in the same spot at the same time. I didn't expect late work because "in the real world if you don't do the work, you will get fired." Oh how I wish I could go back in time and slap myself for being so naive. We need to stop diluting ourselves. In reality, we are not providing our students the same luxury of failure that we as adults enjoy. Last time I checked, a teacher didn't get fired for a lesson plan not resonating with students. Instead, that teacher reflected on their failed lesson and tried again. Why can't we let our students do the same thing?

I have had spirited debates with fellow educators on the topic of failure and with some, I have had to agree to disagree with their philosophies. What I do know is that I am not perfect and I certainly don't expect my students to be either. I have learned A LOT in my first few years of being a principal and this was due to epic failures on my part. I have enjoyed the grace of other administrators/mentors who have helped me along the way. I have LEARNED how to become a better administrator because I have been ALLOWED to reflect on my failures. Don't you think our teachers and students deserve the same luxury? I certainly do.