When failure is a plus
ARECENT NEWSPAPER article included the phrase: “is failing to plan, planning to fail?”. As a parent, our natural instinct is to protect our children but this is possible and appropriate only to a certain extent. Life does not follow a fixed, defined path and unfortunately, we will all face challenges with varying degrees of seriousness, from the health issues of someone close, for example, to the more mundane, such as a bus running late, a flat tyre, a mobile phone running out of battery or a best friend having a bad day. These events cannot really be planned for but must be overcome.
The situation is made worse by social media, images of perfect bakes, perfect bodies and perfect lives, all probably Photoshopped, being beamed around the world — but not usually the bad hair day, the dinner that fell on the floor, or the shirt that was scorched by the iron.
Failures are not generally posted online, only the successes.
So children grow up thinking everyone else is perfect, just not them — and this will continue to be their perception, unless we teach them with the same gusto with which we praise achievement, that failure is the way to learn.
A song in the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang praises the glory of burst bubbles; telling the audience that “every glowing path that goes astray shows you how to find a better way” and “up from the ashes, grow the roses of success”.
The song goes on to list a wealth of inventors whose first attempts failed. The lyrics are teaching resilience — and so must we, at home and at school.
The concept of “resilience” has attracted particular attention within the fields of mental health and education. It should be a key focus for all those working with young people. We should not only look at the good, both at home and at school, but praise the ones who try.
Solving puzzles is a natural activity and, if we were to get them right first time, there would be no feeling of accomplishment when they were finally solved.
Primary school is a time of discovery, when children are engaged in learning essential skills needed in the future including social and emotional competences. Through the school year at Nancy Reuben Primary, we offer a wide range of activities, some creative, some sporty, some art-based, some IT-based, all of which encourage our pupils to try something new.
This creates an atmosphere of engaging in experiential learning which inevitably encompasses trial and error, knocks and improvement.
This approach to education — in a warm, caring learning environment which prides itself on individualised pastoral care and where staff-pupil relationships are incredibly strong and nurturing — presents us with the ideal environment to support our pupils’ emotional, academic and social growth.
Aside from encouraging healthy eating and engaging in exercise and sport and ensuring our children have the tools to stay safe online, we focus on teaching children problem solving, emotional understanding and decision making.
Problem-solving is a skill, as it shows you will not always come up with the correct answer straight away. We train our children to solve problems one step at a time, combining individual and collaborative approaches. Life throws us the unexpected and we must teach our children how to handle the unexpected independently, or to know when and where to ask for help.
People around us do not behave in a predictable manner and children, teenagers and adults must feel able to handle this. We teach children to recognise people do not always make the decisions we expect, or respond how we would like. Being with and around people who are having a bad day is expected; how we respond to it is a life skill, just like tying a shoe lace, crossing a road or academic study.
Finally, we encourage our children to take responsibility for their own actions, both at school, home and in the wider community — we talk through who they can speak to and what different outcomes might emerge.
We cannot protect children from all the things that may cause them distress throughout their lives but we can help children become more resilient so that they are better able to cope with life’s uncertainties and problems.
Perfection is not the norm, despite what we hear and see online. Reinforcing this continually and praising resilience when a project goes wrong is the way to move forward. As the song continues: “Alexander Graham knew failure well; he took a lot of knocks to ring that bell.”
How we respond to a bad day is a skill, like tying a lace’
Anthony Wolfson is head teacher of Nancy Reuben Primary School, Hendon