I love to fail!
Each time I fail, I learn what I did wrong and get better next time.
Think of an ability that you have, something that was difficult for you when you first tried it but you can now do it as second-nature. Now I want you to consider the learning process that you went through to gain this ability, how did you go from incompetence to mastery? I want you to sum up in one word what the crucial element of your progress was.
I am pretty confident that the word you are thinking of is “repeat” (or a synonym of repeat). Whether you were thinking of playing a musical instru-ment, skiing, conversing in a foreign language, driving a car or (as any toddler reading will testify) learning to walk, the path of progress comes from a willingness to fail, learn from it and be better next time.
“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I” Mozart
If you are lucky enough to be gifted at something, be that music, sport or as a linguist, I am sure that you may find the term “lucky” a bit demeaning to the hours of effort you’ve put into it and furthermore, you may actually find the term “gifted” similarly unrepresentative.
“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all” Michelangelo
If we accept that our abilities come, not from some natural gift we were born with, but by embracing failure and using it as a launchpad for progress, the same must be true of school, but it isn’t always considered that way. One student may say “I just can’t write essays” but will happily acknowledge the need to hit a tennis ball hundreds of time to improve her technique, while a sixth former may, on one, hand dismiss herself with a phrase like “I’m just not good at maths,” but will still make fifteen attempts at a parallel park on the school driveway before finally succeeding. It is crucial that we all play a role in ensuring that our students are aware of the clear link between failing and success, these two things are not oppo-sites, one is a path to the other one.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts” Churchill
I would encourage everyone in the school community to consider the following questions…
How do you face challenges? Do you avoid them or embrace them?
What happens when you’re faced with an obstacle? Do you give up or do you persist?
How do you receive feedback? Is it a personal attack or a path to mastery?
How do you see the success of others? Are they a threat or an inspiration?
What happens when you fail? Do you give up or do you learn and come back better?
We’re all born with this “Growth Mindset,” our initial efforts at walking, talking and reading were littered with failures, or, put another way, consider how any toddler would answer the questions above. At DCHS we are encouraging our students to re-embrace challenge, to not be put off by the threat of potential failure and to use feedback constructively. We aren’t just making more rounded members of society, we’re creating lifelong learners.
Andy Bird, Head of Humanities
