Greg Whitby: Why students need to fail to learn how to succeed

Learning from mistakes is how we achieve mastery, whether that is in a subject, sport, or anything else. But failure is not something typically celebrated in schools.

Try, fail, try again, success: Steps to reach your goals.

It is well known that the most successful entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, writers and sports people have all failed and failed often.

Read any interviews or biographies and you find failure is not only acknowledged but celebrated.

In 2006, legendary Chicago Bulls basketballer Michael Jordan was featured in a Nike commercial where he reflects on all the shots he missed, the games he lost for the team, and then reveals that those failures were critical to his success. Failing is critical to learning.

Learning from mistakes is how we achieve mastery, whether that is in a subject, sport, or anything else. Yet the concept of failure is not something typically celebrated in schools. In fact, failure has been turned into something to be avoided at all costs.

Recently, a Victorian girls grammar school dedicated a week to celebrating students’ mistakes. Any school that works to encourage resilience needs to be applauded. However, we need more than a week out of an entire year dedicated to normalising mistakes in learning.

Melbourne school Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar created a “Failure Week” to encourage student learning. Picture: Mandie Gillot

One of the most complex things that a child will ever do is learn to walk and talk, and yet, that is achieved in their own time, without a curriculum or a learning plan.

It happens simply by trying, failing and then trying again until they finally work it all out. What they do receive is loads of encouragement from parents and grandparents. Stumbles and mispronounced words are all celebrated as part of the discovery process.

Do we still celebrate mistakes in the same way when that child reaches Year 6 or Year 12? The key is in the type of feedback we are providing. Is it enabling learning or is it passing judgement?

Executive director of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta Greg Whitby.

While attempts have been made to reduce the stigma of “failure” such as A-E reporting, we still have minimum benchmarks and punitive measures in place.

We need a curriculum that is shaped by teachers in response to student interests. We also need teachers who are exploring new ways to reach their students, even if that means that they make mistakes on the way to becoming better practitioners.

*Greg Whitby is the executive director of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta.