More about Failure

This week I asked students to choose from the following two topics and write a blog.

1. Write about a success or achievement that happened here at school.  Why do you remember it?  How did it change your thinking or feelings?
2. Write about a time that something you did at school was a flop or you failed.  How did that make you feel?  How did it change your way of thinking and doing things?

Here's the interesting question: How many of them will dare to choose the 2nd option? How many of them are brave enough to embrace their failure, or even talk about it?

To often we've structured schools to be places where failure is anathema. I've had many conversations with parents who cannot abide the possibility of their children failing.

And yet, I think that failure is healthy and that we should provide more opportunities for students in our schools to take risks and learn how to deal with, live with, and grow from failure.

Here's a list of my student's blogs. Feel free to check them out. Let's see which ones dare talk about failure. Then let's find out how to encourage the rest of them to be brave enough to look at their failures.