Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm (Winston Churchill)

Photo by Eugene Lim on Unsplash

Recently, I was reminded of failures' benefits while re-watching Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi. 

Yoda says to Luke: Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.

Having just marked all my seniors' work, I'll have to pass on that message to a few of my students next week.

When you see the shadows falling, when you hear that cold wind calling - hold on tight to your dream (ELO)

Photo by John T on Unsplash

Within striving for a quality education system, there's a battle between learning/growing as a person and assessment ratings; it is clearly an ongoing struggle within the English system that involves GCSE and A Levels.

It's deeply entrenched and made tougher to approach with its concentration on examinations at the end of each year.

Among other things, politicians love to measure and quantify things.

Final exams make the failure so much bigger. Incremental failures along the way with internal assessments are valuable. They allow the failures (and successes) to accrue more organically.

My students have recently received their results. I implored them to remember the feeling they had when they got them, whether it was elation at one end of the continuum, or profound disappointment at the other.

Let that feeling drive you.

And above all else - hold on tight to your dreams.

Why doncha? (West Bruce and Laing)

Failure shmailure.

Photo by PICSELI on Unsplash

I've had occasion this week to talk quite a lot about failure with students and parents.

Seems some people get quite paralysed by the idea of failure.

Now, as long term Baggy Trews readers know - I am quite acquainted with failure and I've bemoaned the fact a few times that our modern student types are not, to their detriment.

With this in mind, I came across this in my bookmarks: How to teach children that failure is the secret to success. Time for a revisit before deleting the link.

The main take away - when your child is struggling on something or has setbacks, don't focus on their abilities, focus on what they can learn from it.

They're watching you, you know.

Yawn 'asal wa yawn basal * (Arabic proverb)

* means - One day honey, one day onions.

My version of it - you have to take the crunchy with the smooth!

 

My job is often largely done inside my head - millions of thoughts and mulling over of decisions - gazillions of synapses - trying to sort out my world. On a daily basis.

That's why I'm so often exhausted at the end of the day, and why I struggle to communicate with my wife on Saturdays. All that accumulation means I am like Jason Bourne in the car listening silently to the Franka Potente character.

I'm sorry, I can't remember where I got this next bit from but it resonated!

Anyway, it turns out that the mental load of management is primarily around experiencing failure.

Actual failure, sure, but mostly potential failure. Imagining failure in advance. All the current things that could go wrong. And more important, the things you're not doing that will be obvious oversights later. Our brains work overtime to cycle through these, to learn to see around corners, to have the guts to delegate without doing the work ourselves (even though that creates more imagined points of failure). Scan, touch, consider, analyze, repeat.

This is so on the money it's scarey!

I guess that's the binary aspect to the filter process on every thought/potential action during my day - will this work/will this do more harm/is there a better way and so on - imagining failure in advance.

Most times I find the filter works. But not always. And that's okay. None of us are perfect.

Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about (John Lennon)

I was talking to a colleague t'other day about failure. Along the lines of - our students need to experience some failure.

I've mentioned this before in previous posts (I searched 'failure' on the blog and among the posts was an old prizegiving speech - fun reading that) but it can stand another thrust into the limelight: I was a spectacular failure at school! 

• I had to repeat a year at primary school (my birthday's in October) 
• I had to repeat my fifth form year (the current Year 11) 
• I did not gain a bursary to go to university
• I turned 19 in my last year of school
• I failed my drivers' license the first time
• I was turned down twice for a teachers' studentship to attend university 
• I have truly lost count of the number of jobs I have failed to get over the years

And yet here I am. 

I have a masters degree in English with honours, I have a masters degree in educational management, I have a number of other diplomas and I have always got a great job when I needed one.

Why? Two reasons: 1 My parents never gave up on me. They celebrated my small successes when they came because they knew how hard I'd fought for them. 

2 My school (Mt Albert Grammar) never gave up on me - no one ever said to me, "Warren - you need to give up this dream of going to University and becoming a teacher". Never. Not once. Not even close.

This may strike you as an unusual story. It's not.

Every school I've taught in has contained staff like me and Michael Jordan, all with a litany of failures behind them.

That conversation with a colleague the other ended with us comparing our lengthy list of failures (I think I won).

Failure is not a bad thing. Failure can be the secret of success.

Many roads have I travelled (Madonna)

1 The power of habit
This kind of article is like a film promo - all the best bits are condensed into a short read on the power of habits. I'm a fan, having been taught the habit regime by a master.

2 Failure
I'm a big fan of failure. Period. I feel bad for people who haven't tasted enough failure or who have been protected from failure. Not cool.

3 Social learning
It's becoming more and more important for me to understand what motivates the social learning of those I teach. I get older but my students stay the same age and they are not living in the world that I know from my increasingly distant youth. These types of articles help.

4 Powerpoint
I like powerpoint as a tool. More than prezi or powtoons. I bookmarked this article to help me use powerpoint for good and not evil.

5 What if...?
These are six great 'what if?' questions.

There's no success like failure...

...and failure's no success at all! So says Bob Dylan in a great song - 'Love Minus Zero/No Limit'. I used this quote in my last assembly (my deputy principal was scared I was going to sing it!). Well actually that's not strictly true. I used the first part - there's no success like failure - because Dylan rather blurs the message with the completed thought and it didn't suit my purpose at assembly. Which was to tell my students that failure is good for them!

I've certainly learnt more about myself from failing things (and boy have I failed things) than I have from my successes. I failed my drivers' licence first up and was thrilled beyond words when my smarter younger brother later failed his too. I bring that up a lot! I failed the school certificate examination and in those days (the 1970s) that meant repeating the year. During that repeat year I learnt about self-discipline and I matured a lot. I also met a guy who has been a constant friend throughout the years. I had a 'seat-of-my-pants' year in the sixth form and then I failed the university bursary examination as well two years later.

The good thing was that all of these failures were not fatal. I survived and by dogged perseverance I made my way to university with a healthy regard for my capabilities. During my assembly I related the story about Thomas Edison. When he was trying to develop the light bulb, he had over 5,000 failures. He was asked why he kept wasting his time. He said, "I have not failed 5,000 times. I have discovered 5,000 ways that won't work. If I persevere, I will come to the end of ways that won't work and discover the one that will."



Isn't that great? I'm in awe of this. Where would we be if he'd not persevered? I'm also in awe from a different perspective. That Edison could visualise where he wanted to get to and then try try try various methods to get there is beyond my own understanding. It's a bit like whoever stood on a beach and thought - "If I mix this sand with some other things I bet I could come up with glass!" This amazes me! Thank goodness we're not all the same.

Did the message to my students get through? Maybe I planted a seed for a few that failure is actually not to be feared, indeed it should be embraced. Maybe they'll think about Edison and the light bulb after the next failure. That would make me happy.