Cycle One - On Failure

Over Christmas this past year, my mom and dad had asked me to clean out some things in my old room. I am married now, living across the state, and it was time to go through many of the leftover boxes. I found a binder of my middle school and high school achievements that my mom had put together. As we went through the pages, we laughed, cried, and reminisced. I was especially emotional when I came across a “Turtle-Gram” from Mr. Hertel's 7^th grade math class. To get a “Turtle-Gram” you had to receive an A on a math quiz or test. In my year with my Mr. Hertel, I had only received one “Turtle-Gram”. Though only a certificate on a piece of printed computer paper, my mom had saved that blessed “Turtle-Gram” for me.

I grew up being horrible at math. I was always the student that had to stay in at recess to go through number flashcards. I was in the “special” extra class period of math in middle school. The only reason I passed math in high school was due to my two best friends I shared the classes with. I always had a tutor and I always ended up in fights with my dad because he didn't understand why I just didn't get it. Point being, I often failed at math. Hard. Terribly. Rock bottom. However, this failure has been incredibly important to me as I have grown into a woman. I have always been the student that had to study for hours and put in the extra time with the teacher in order to get the grade. I often times would fail, especially in math, but I always felt pride in my work. My parents, my teachers, and I always knew how hard I worked to get my grade. There was never a question that I tried my hardest even amidst moments of utter failure.

In Paul Tough's article, “What if the Secret to Success is Failure?” he expresses the idea that overall success can be attributed to students who bounce back, stay focused, take the extra step, and have true grit. As I read this article, my heart honestly leapt with joy. At times, Tough described how students like me are able to succeed. I wholeheartedly agree, largely because of my experience as a student, that students who are not gifted with natural brains can succeed in school. Students can arise from failure in miraculous ways to achieve the grade, to make the team, or to be the star in the play.

I believe that failure can be a beautiful thing. I have always been taught that great lessons can arise from failure. I hold the truth that your life is often a reaction to the trials and tribulations you can experience. Your choices of how to react can often define you as a person. As the great poet Maya Angelou is quoted, “I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be deduced by it.”

When I taught at my most recent school, we held a “no zero policy”. Students were not allowed to receive failing grades in our K – 8 classes. We could still deduce student work for late work or failure to complete an assignment. I still tracked down students and contacted parents to get missing assignments turned in or for incomplete work to be finished. Still, our students were essentially not allowed to fail. You could not give a student an F on a homework grade without approval from the principal. You were not allowed to give a student an F on a quiz, test, or project unless they had every opportunity to re-do the work. I understood the administrations perspective on this policy but I also found it to be completely unfair to the teachers but most of all to the students. As explained, I grew up in an environment where you learned from failure. To teach in a classroom in which students could not receive a deserved F was frustrating. I often questioned how we were preparing students for the “real world” with this type of policy.

In an article by Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post, she explains through a recent study that, “telling children that it is perfectly normal to sometimes fail at school can actually help them do better academically.” The article, “The Answer Sheet”, looked into a 2012 study which explained that failure in education can be beneficial for students. The findings of the study pointed out, “acknowledging that difficulty is a crucial part of learning could stop a vicious circle in which difficulty creates feelings of incompetence that in turn disrupts learning.”

At the same time, we can also be held back by failure. As Parker J. Palmer addressed in his chapter, “A Culture of Fear – Education and the Disconnected Life”, fear is what can prevent us from a “live encounter”. This live encounter could be team building with a colleague, sharing in “a-ha!” moments with a student, or standing up to the administration to argue a particular curriculum. Fear can in turn separate us from doing what we love, from achieving, and connecting. As a teacher, I have many fears. Like Palmer, I fear certain students or colleagues. But I also fear the upcoming Common Core standards and their lack of social studies standards. I fear the choices our legislators may make on merit pay for teachers in Michigan. I fear racism and and segregation in our school system. I fear that the students I taught at East Kentwood High School and St. Paul Catholic School will have wildly different futures because of where they live in Michigan. Because of these fears, the question then becomes, do I let these fears stop me? Do I develop a phobia about my fears and become gridlocked in who I could become as a teacher?

The obvious answer is no. But this path is a difficult one especially as a teacher. In William Ayers, “To Teach”, he describes that as teachers we all face a “moral choice”. We, as teachers, have the moral choice to face our fears in the name of the education of our students. As Ayers explains, “teaching is more than transmitting skills; it is a living act, and it involves preference and value, obligation and choice, trust and care, commitment and justification.”

John Green, a young adult author, recently gave the commencement address to the Butler University of graduates of 2013. In his address, Green honestly told the graduates that they would indeed be “a nobody for a while.” He described the difficulties of graduating college and the challenges these new graduates would face as young people. Still, he encouraged them to persevere in the face of possible failure and humiliation. In closing, Green congratulated the audience with, “we haven’t left you with the easiest path, I know, but I have every confidence in you, and I wish you a very happy graduation, despite the circumstances.”

Green explained for all of us that there will be challenges but it is all about how you face them. In education, as in life, there will be failures but it is always about how you handle each one. I will always be the optimist, as annoying as that may be to some, but this viewpoint has made me a better teacher. In closing, I again quote Angelou, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”