What Happens When We Fail?

As a new school year begins, I tend to drift back to my experiences in school as a child. I hated school! During summer vacation, I roamed the woods and fields on my family farm and loved the feeling of escape from timelines, expectations and grades. I used to have nightmares of red pens scribbling all over assignments I poured gut-wrenching hours into, just to receive a borderline C- on.

Basically, I was afraid of failure. My mom was a highly respected principal of a Lutheran school; my dad was a retired Marine with a highly decorated military record, and my older brother was a lifetime honor student.

Does this sound like a few of your students? We have all had students who come to us with a lot of baggage, not to mention a constant fear of failure. 

Unfortunately, most of our students have had failures not only in school but throughout their lives. 

Broken homes and relationships, unemployment, denied a premium job and the list goes on.

The last thing a potential student wants to hear is the following: failure forges greatness, failure makes you humble, builds character and failure is what happens to you, not what is you. Personally, I would leave immediately!

 2020 has been a year of disappointments and adjustments. Teachers and students have experienced the disappointment of non-traditional teaching, HSE testing came to an immediate halt, and not achieving life goals as planned. 

Regardless, I continue to look optimistically at the upcoming school year and 2021. I am simply amazed and befuddled to see how adult education teachers have transformed into virtual teaching super-heroes! Zoom meetings, creative teaching, inclusion techniques, and collaboration tactics have surmounted the COVID-19 threat.

 So what happens when we experience failure? As one of my incarcerated students, humbly stated, “…we get up and try again because that’s just what we do!” 

6 replies
    • Laura
      Laura says:

      We most definitely will Jenn! This has been a very trying year, however, education goes on, traditionally or non-traditionally.

      Reply
  1. Jennifer Lorenzen
    Jennifer Lorenzen says:

    Thank you for sharing your perspective and for your transparency, Laura! It helps to hear from someone who’s “been there” as I work to understand my students’ motivations and what hurdles they may have to overcome. I was a “good” student who loved school as a child and young adult, so I constantly have to strive to step into my students’ very different worlds so I can help them achieve their goals. I appreciate knowing that for some students, hearing the platitude that “failure makes you stronger” is not helpful; in fact, it may make them want to run from a challenge that even hints at the possibility of another failure. I always congratulate my students for making the hard decision to step into my classroom in the first place. I encourage them to focus on their future, NOT on their past mistakes. I LOVE teaching Adult Ed because there’s nothing more satisfying than having students say, “Thank you for supporting me!” after earning their HSE diploma.

    Reply
    • Laura
      Laura says:

      Thank-you for your comments Jennifer. Focusing on the future is so important for our students! If we stay in the past, we will never move forward. Great words of advice for your students! Keep up the great work Jennifer!

      Reply
  2. Meg Foley
    Meg Foley says:

    This is great and so true for the teachers as the students. We just keep on trying…. Thanks to Laura for this good and reassuring read.

    Reply

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