I would like to share my thoughts on why failure is important. I’ll be sharing how failure is embraced within our classroom, yet also how important it is for the growth of our students. Reading the article “Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts” it revealed that we don’t normally encourage our students to learn from their mistakes. Often times we want to see perfection immediately, rather than finding the “entry point” of where they are at with whatever academic subject. A lot of support that parents can do is to have full on conversations that make their child think of what went wrong and what they could do to make it better. I’d like to echo the techniques in embracing this from the Edutopia article:

1. Teach Your Kids That It’s OK to Make Mistakes
   • Hearing the words that it’s okay to make a mistake will release the tension and pressure for failure. In all reality, encouraging your kids to make mistakes on something they’ve never tried will allow them want to take more risks. There is nothing like the comfort of knowing that the support system at home will be well received when they know that failure will not define who they are.
2. Teach Your Kids to Take Risks
   • Taking risks allows opportunities for life lessons and even new ways to solve problems. Don’t just limit this to academics, but rather let this be the outlook on life. Ask your kids, “what risks have you taken this week that will help you become a better person?”
3. Teach Your Kids to Appreciate Feedback
   • I remember as a child that it wasn’t so much the feedback that was given to me that would shut me down, rather it was how the feedback was communicated. Always be sure to encourage them in a setting that will allow them to feel secure and safe, and never upset or intimidated on what you’re sharing with them. This will allow them to be open to receiving and then giving feedback.
4. Teach Your Kids How to Provide Critical Feedback
   • When giving feedback to your kids and encouraging them to do the same, teach them the sandwich method. “Praise, truth, and praise!” An example could be, “Sebastian, I love how you completed the five paragraphs that were required, however look at capitalizing all the nouns that are needed in your writing…however, it’s still a great start to what you’re completing.”
5. Give Your Kids Opportunities to Provide Critical Feedback
   • One of the ways I love to encourage this is give students an opportunity to share their thoughts on this blog, as well as share what their peers could be improving on. That’s the purpose of this blog, to write and encourage each other to become better writers. At home start with something simple, “How did you like dinner…and be honest? Too much salt or not enough?” Feedback can be as simple as that when as your kids to give you support.

These are just little pieces of advice in allowing my students and your kids to grow as a whole, while becoming the best they can be for our future tomorrow!

Mr. Garcia