Failure

This is one of my reflections from my class, Leading Change: Go Beyond Gamification with Gameful Learning.

Most of my learners are afraid to fail. As high schoolers, they have been through school enough years to believe that failure is not an option. They don’t see failure as a way to learn from their mistakes, but instead they see failure as the end. There is no going back from it. Many classes will allow students to retake assessments or prove their knowledge in a different format, but only a small group of students take advantage of this opportunity. A lot of students have been beaten down throughout the years enough to believe that their efforts are not worth it. Sometimes they don’t see why it is worth it to learn a certain concept, and that stops them from trying again as well.

Most teachers allow retakes, but failure is still “tsk-ed” by some teachers. It’s often held over students’ heads as a stick (in the carrot-stick metaphor). I am not immune in this as well, and it is something that I absolutely have to work on. When it comes to parents, many parents are open to the changes that teachers are trying to make when it comes to flexible deadlines and retakes, but there are always community members who don’t quite understand why this can be better than sticking to hard deadlines and giving out zeros. More communication about the process could help to ease this tension.

I think that I need to be a support system for students and parents. I need to provide low-risk opportunities for students to fail, and give them helpful feedback that can help them fix their mistakes. Over time, as students begin to see that their “failures,” no matter how minor, help them to improve, they will be more willing to take more risks in the future to improve themselves.