HOW FAILURE CAN LEAD TO SUCCESS

Everyone learns from their mistakes – and children should learn this early on in their lives. At some point in time, they will come to realize that their idols – whether K-Pop singers, actors or the like – are not “perfect”.

Eventually, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fails. Even Albert Einstein experienced failure, as well as other visionaries or inventors in history books. Learning about these people’s failures can actually help students perform better in school.

In a study published by Xiaodong Lin-Siegler of Columbia University’s Teachers College in 2016, it was found that there was an improvement in the grades of students in science, after learning about the struggles of Marie Curie and even Einstein. In the same study, students who only learned about the scientists’ achievements saw their grades decline.

Lin-Siegler is actually expanding her research into the failures of successful people – and she is starting with Nobel laureates. The Education for Persistence and Innovation Center, which Lin-Siegler heads, will convene researchers from various academic fields and countries in its effort to better understand how failure can facilitate learning and success.

Making mistakes and failing are not actually bad things. They can be a setback yes, but these can serve as challenges, especially for our young students, to strive harder. They can actually grow from learning both about the failures of successful people, and from their own failures.

Research also shows that for failure to work, educators and parents must encourage students to figure out what went wrong and try to improve. Students should realize that failure is a normal part of the process of learning.

They should also be taught that failure is not inherently bad, and that success can be beyond their reach.