I have already failed.........This is how many of our students feel in the first few days of school and this is how I feel about my blogging. On July 10th I published my first blog and my goal was to publish at least twice a month and here it is the first of September and my second post. I am a failure. So now what do I do? How you react really comes down to whether or not you have a fixed or a growth mindset. Check out Carol Dweck's research on this subject in her book Mindset.
For some of our students what to do after a failure is a daily, maybe even hourly, decision. Didn't understand math, didn't complete assignment...failure. Had a football game, didn't study for social studies quiz, made a 40%....failure. Listened in class, completed science lab, started lab report, parents fighting, turned in incomplete report.......failure.
What do we want our students to do when they "fail". Two teams of teachers in our building devoted a big part of their summer coming up with a plan where failure is a normal part of learning. These teachers have had a mindshift as they consider failure as a part of learning. These teachers based their revitalization of the traditional grading system used in our building on Thomas Guskey's work and book Developing Standards-Based Report Cards. This transition is a work in progress and they are seeing some roadblocks and some successes already, however their commitment to student learning is fueling their work in this area. Some interesting reading on the difference between eastern and western cultures and how they view failure among students may help you shift your thinking and can be found in this link. http://www.npr.org/2013/09/02/218067142/why-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning-differently
So as the school year progresses what will you do when students fail? How does your school support student learning and mastery of the standards? It is no longer good enough to say, "I taught it ....... they should have learned it."
Sources:
Dweck, Carol S. Mindset. London: Robinson, 2012. Print.
Guskey, Thomas. & Bailey, Jane M. Developing Standards-Based Report Cards. California: Corwin. 2010
