Failure is Always an Option

Right now my students and I are in the middle of a research project. One of the most important things that we are delving into right now is honing our skills in evaluating websites for accuracy and bias. We did the traditional exercise of evaluating the Northwestern Tree Octopus and then I gave them the challenge of evaluating three websites about Ferdinand Magellan. Thanks to my friend and colleague, Gerald Aungst, I was able to provide them with a severely erroneous site about him as part of the challenge. As part of the evaluation process, I provided a template for them to track the evaluation process.

It was a complete failure.

The first class that attempted to use the template struggled. I reflected that the template was not detailed enough to guide the process, so the students were struggling with where to start.

So I redesigned it.

All of my classes had already received the template, so for my remaining classes, I included this slide in my lesson.

I told them that I had failed, that the original template I had designed was not effective. Then, each student crumpled up the old one and put their name on the new one. The new template proved extremely effective and students easily completed it, reaching the conclusions that I hoped they would about each site provided.

So why bother telling this story?

Too often, teachers feel that they need to be perfect, that they can’t falter in front of their students. I find it more effective to be real with my students and let them know that I am also a learner and that I learn from my mistakes. Also, in a climate of ‘no excuses’ and where failure is seen as the worst thing that can happen, it is important to model learning from failure and turning failure into success for our students.

My students didn’t flinch when I told them “I failed.” We put our names on the new paper, moved on and in the end, they were able to identify the site that was phony all by themselves, using the new template as a guide.