In the last post, I had talked about how addressing a student’s emotional state is extremely important while teaching Math. Let’s face it: Your student won’t respond well to me if I am not meeting them where they’re at.
A second thing I set up in my teaching environment is to allow students to fail frequently. This is really beneficial for all students, whether they’re struggling to catch up or even if they want to excel and get ahead.
You might be asking why. Shouldn’t the environment be set up for students to succeed frequently? Success is the thing we’re aiming for, right?
I’d be the first to agree with you. Success is, in fact, the aim. Failure is the price to pay for success.
In How to be a successful failure, David Hillson describes a “Failure Zone” which must be crossed before reaching an “Innovation Success Zone” where people make discoveries or break their existing limits.
Coaxing your student into the Failure Zone is tricky. Our competitive school environment penalizes failure and forces students to stay within comfort zones (or in the worst case, try to take shortcuts). Point deductions, looking foolish in front of others, or bad grades without second chances of redemption all make setbacks painful.
Don’t get me wrong – I still put my students’ feet to the fire when it comes to their grades. It’s an unavoidable reality.
But I don’t do this during their practice. Before even weathering the storm of a homework assignment, I give students the opportunity to make mistakes without feeling the sting of shame or a threat to their grade. If students can be encouraged to participate without thought to failure or success, they’re more apt to experiment, ask questions, and explore. Along the way, they’ll naturally make their mistakes, but not be crippled by the fear of failure.
While teaching under lockdown, it’s been imperative that I directly call on students to participate. Online makes this harder, but creating a culture of speaking up, even if it’s just one at a time, has been so helpful for my students. Admittedly, it’s easier to do this at Legend because we keep our class sizes small, but I’m happy to exploit that if it’s for the good of our students!
Doesn’t it seem shocking to you that in the working world, scientists, engineers, and researchers all get to fail frequently to reach their discoveries, but we don’t give that grace to our own students? It should be little wonder as to why we struggle so hard to teach!
There are some things we can all do to support our youth.
1. Check your own emotional state, should you be a teacher, tutor, or parent, is also critical. If you’re frustrated, they’ll feel it too, and shut down. Once a student shuts down, you’ve lost a valuable session.
2. Respond in an empathetic way, even if a student is “incorrect”. I cringe when I see grown-ups open with, “No, that’s wrong.” Instead, ask a student what they observed to bring them to a conclusion. This is immensely revealing because you’ll have an opportunity to step into your student’s head. Good teachers rely on this kind of information!
3. Give your students a big whiteboard, or many pieces of paper to write on. Get them to write big. It’s amazing how much more confidence they’ll feel when they make a big mess.
4. Let students walk away from the problem and revisit it at a later time. Knowing when to retreat and come back refreshed is a skill that even we grown-ups have to be savvy enough to employ. Throwing ourselves constantly at a problem when our brains are stuck is exceptionally inefficient. I think this is the best skill to learn under lockdown. We’re constantly fidgeting and victimized by our own restlessness… but perhaps this is getting into a territory that’s great for another post down the line, so I’ll just leave it at that for now!
We’re always open to talk. Drop us a line if you currently have a struggle with your student, whether it’s about math or another subject. Spring Intensive is just around the corner. You can bet that I (and other Legend teachers) will have to put this into practice even more for the challenges we face for 2021.