I have a somewhat fickle relationship with failure. Both personally and professionally. Personally in that I understand embrace it within my own value system. I see its value in my own achievements. I routinely try out new ‘things’ in my classroom and openly tell the students “that I need your help as I do not know if this will work.” Some do, many offer some success and a fair few don’t. I even have a fridge magnet that reminds me every day to ‘jump, and the net will appear.’ I even have a blog category on risk.
Professionally, its tough. I work in a school where many of the students do all that they can to avoid risk, and that includes in their learning. Where ‘risk aversion’ seems to be almost endemic. And I have some evidence to support that my musing.
Three weeks ago I set a Year 7 female student the target of “failing more often in her writing.” And she duly wrote in her planner. Now, I know that the target seems a little odd written like that, but I did it explain it to her in more detail what it meant. I explained that I hoped she would try and expand her diction, to try a variety of sentence structures and not be scared of getting it wrong. I wanted here to see value in “getting it wrong, in order to learn how to get it right.” I admit, I could have done a better job in recording the target and interestingly, it was picked up by her mentor, a more experienced English teacher than I am. Even after I explained my intentions to my colleague, this approach was meet with some derision (then again so was shoeless learning).
On Monday’s, I teach a weekly, one off lesson, with a middle set Year 8 class. We have been working on stump speeches, previously we had listened to a few of my most favourite CI talks and discuss the use of emotive language. I started the lesson by quizzing the students on what they could remember learnt about persuasive language from the previous weeks and then gave them the option of three levelled writing tasks;
- A straight forward option with some, but little reward.
- A challenging option, “this will make you think but if you even get 80% of the way through will be an achievement”
- “A very rewarding but tough option.” I went on to say, “just having a go at this, gets my respect.”
Of the 25, only 1 student accepted task 3, and only 5 accepted task 2. What does that say about the level of trust these students have in me as their teacher? What it tells me is that promoting risk may well be one of the most important responsibilities I have. To move that aspirational bar higher, to challenge that mind set and lead by example.
Today I read on the BBC about a Wimbledon High School, a top girls’ school planning a “failure week” to teach pupils to embrace risk, build resilience and learn from their mistakes. At last, more support for embracing and negotiating risk. I was so buoyed by the fact I sent a few quotes and one of my favourite ‘risk’ quotes.
If you are looking for more inspiration and more challenging ‘stump’ speeches, here is my collection.
Everybody gets knocked down…. how quickly are you gonna get up. How are you gonna get up.
Know, for the record, I absolutely believe in promoting a culture of risk. Accepting that you must get out of your own way.
There comes a time in every race when the competitor meets the real opponent, and understands that it himself. Lance Armstrong
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