In order to develop the concept of the benefits of failure, Penn State University has a course for engineering students called Failure 101. The students have to take risks and do experiments. The more failures they have, the sooner they can get an A grade! Many great successes started out as failures. Columbus failed when he set out to find a new route to India. He found America instead. Champagne was invented by a monk called Dom Perignon when a bottle of wine accidentally had a secondary fermentation. 3M invented glue that was a failure – it did not stick. The “failed” glue later became the basis for the Post-it note, a run-away success.
“Why failure is vital to your success” by Paul Sloane, founder of Destination Innovation http://destination-innovation.com/BB.failure.pdf
There are many resources related to risk-taking and failure in the corporate or entrepreneurial world but relatively little is said about these same behaviors in the classroom.
But according to the Methodology for Creating a Quality Learning Environment,
Most students are not risk-takers in the classroom. Past educational experiences have discouraged them from taking risks because of the negative reinforcement that often follows. In order to change this perception, it is important that faculty be supportive of risk-taking students from an affective or emotional perspective, immediately after an unsuccessful event occurs. For example, when a bad outcome occurs, an effective instructor congratulates a student for taking the risk and then provides constructive feedback to address the problem.
Faculty who care make it clear that risk-taking will be supported and not penalized in the course. They encourage students to “experiment and try it,” not always doing what they think the instructor wants. Students need to understand that their demands for affirmation, validation, and answers to every question will not necessarily be met. Working in a risk-taking environment also means challenging students to think critically, to affirm and validate on their own, and to generate possible answers to their own questions.
Faculty Guidebook 3.1.3
What do you think?
How do you encourage risk-taking in your classroom? Or do you?
To what degree should the kind of risk-taking that works in the professional world be modeled in classrooms?
RISK is truly a four-letter word. But it can easily be interpreted in two ways. Think of risk as a coin with tails representing a “threat” and heads representing “opportunity”. For about 40 years I have told a story about four people who graduate from the same university. Two of them are engineering majors and the other two are construction management majors. One engineer and one CM person get jobs with construction contractors. The other two people go to work for consultants, owners (private or public). The people who work in construction are fascinated with “heads” and the others see “tails”.
Of course, this is a very large oversimplification, but I have observed people in and around construction for about 55 years! There is at least a “nugget” of truth in this example.
Many construction company people have made very successful careers by intelligently understanding the aspects of risk and the reward for using failure to build future success.
Students, workers, leaders (all people} can achieve a higher level of performance and have success by building on each failure to grow!