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Failure as a Partner to Success with HS Principal Allison Isbell

LREI
Failure is not something we often like to dwell on. As a mom of 3 boys I have not often found myself on the sidelines of games or on the bench at the playground talking about all the ways that my boys have failed, all that they have not accomplished. We just don’t do it. Instead we focus on performance, success, achievement--the hooks upon which we hope they might hang their burgeoning sense of confidence and self.
As parents and students we are situated in a societal context that equates success with outcome: with grades, test scores, rankings. And, thus, failure is viewed at odds with success--as a shortcoming, deficiency, limitation, defeat.

But what if we began to view failure in its various forms not as limiting, but as the necessary ingredient that drives success and gives it unique value, substance, and power? What if we recognize failure as a partner to success, rather than its rival?
 
I propose that we take on an expansive definition of failure: rather than allowing it to represent the absence of something--not knowing, not reaching, not achieving--the experience of failure in its various forms should instead be shorthand for risk taking, imagining, testing, modeling, iterating.

How we frame failure also affects the way we frame our own personal narratives. In the cycle of our school year, we are at a moment in time where students can understand the efforts, processes, and products of the work they have done as iterative, dynamic, in motion--or, conversely, they can see their work as static, immovable, fixed.
 
So, how do we help our students analyze their perceived failures in ways that are productive, rather than self-defeating?  How do we help them make that transformative shift and begin to view failure as an essential ingredient for school success? And finally, how do we help them take up experiences of failure in ways that give rise to self-determination, responsibility and agency?

In our classrooms, in our conversations, and in our feedback to students we are working to value the iterative, expansive processes of reviewing, revising, revisiting, refining. Through practice, with work, and over time we are orienting students toward “try again,” “think through,” “assess” and “analyze.”
 
I ask you to join us in helping your students uncover the great potential that lies beneath perceived failures. Help them move from frustration to places of productive engagement by analyzing and naming parts of their work that are going well, and areas where they can revise and refine their processes. Guide them through the following questions:
 
What can I do differently this time that might change the outcome?
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