Cycle 1: Interpretations on the meaning and causes of failure

        The readings for this cycle very much attacked the concept of failure as an institutionalized creation.  Although, many people intend to explain the reasons and causes of failure by individuals, groups, and/or institutions, failure itself needs to be analyzed specifically as to what it actually means.  The materials for this cycle investigated this essential question, while presenting various avenues for the readers to follow in their way to understand failure in a personal sense.  As a current classroom teacher, this was most profound and enlightening for me to think about how this concept relates specifically to my own policies and student behavior.

            The article by Paul Tough was especially revealing to me considering the current educational and political climate surrounding education.  Tough appears to not just explain the problems with failure as a construction, but attempts to seek out improvements for the future of education.  He investigates the idea of taking a perceived negative “failure”, and explaining how it can be transformed into a positive.  I agree very much with Tough’s premise of transforming failure to success and agree that “failure” itself is essential in order to improve and achieve success in education.  In my department, we refer to this concept as “mastery learning” and all teachers agree in allowing students multiple opportunities to “master” their own knowledge in order to be more successful and learn content in a more meaningful way.  Although each teacher provides different avenues for students to achieve mastery, it really is a function of the concept of learning from previous mistakes and improving on one’s skills that Tough describes in the article.  For example, students are given a weekly quiz on Friday, the scores, quiz, and answers, are posted online for students and over the weekend they may choose to review their quiz and correct mistakes, by providing explanations, and may recover a specified amount of credit.  Students, who take advantage of this process regularly, perform better on test, achieve higher grades, and participate more in class activities.  I believe in this process and I think Tough presents a way to alter our collective perception of failure into a positive, successful opportunity for students to achieve.

            Ironically, this past winter I read Paul Tough’s latest book How Children Succeed; Grit, Curiosity,and the power of Character.  Many of the ideas which are hinted at within this article are further explained in this book with much more detail.  His research is profound but I connect with his positive attitude toward education.  He believes the skills are there for ALL students to achieve and we can make more of a difference than we think as teachers, beyond content, but into the non-cognitive skills.  I would highly recommend reading this book. 

            Failure as a socially constructed idea is incredibly important for educators to understand.  R.P. McDermott explained the impact of this on students and how educators must lead society away from explaining why individuals, groups, and institutions “fail” but rather promote success for all.  He explained that far too much time, energy, and resources go into documenting “failures” instead of focusing on improving the learning for children.  I totally agree with sentiment from McDermott.  I also think many teachers and educators are sometimes the worst offenders of this mentality as well.  Often in meetings or casual conversations teachers are focused on what “we” do not have or what we can NOT do as opposed to focusing on the actual impact we CAN make with individual children.  Please do not misunderstand, there are many frustrations with funding or policies or testing with which I wholeheartedly agree, but we need to focus our energy on improving ourselves for those students in front of us.  I think McDermott explained we need to move forward from “failure” on all levels and if we do this in education, the society can and will follow in transforming the understanding of “failure”.

            When reading this week about failure I could not help but be reminded of a concept which I have discussed in classes with students previously.  As a quick introduction into my Economics class, I have students read a chapter of a 1992 book, The Learning Gap by Harold Stevenson and James Stigler.  Students read a chapter entitled, effort and ability.  This chapter displays the difference in US educational model of success as opposed to the Asian model of success in schools.  Very simply put, Americans tend to focus on each person’s individual “abilities” while Asian schools focus on individual effort.  As students read they are usually blown away by the different perceptions of what is success and what is failure in Asian cultures of Japan and China.  In these places the society views a student who cannot master a concept as simply needing more time and the expectation is for that student to continue working (effort) until it is mastered.  The American model and society perceives these students as failures and they are stigmatized because of this perception.  I use this to introduce students to the concept of continued effort even when they are struggling to show the value of hard work and effort to overcome difficulties and the positive impact it can have for their future.   The readings for this week reminded me of this and I have linked the introduction to the book for anyone interested in seeing what it is about.