Over the last few years I have heard more and more about the benefits of failure. I realized that we needed to address this in our learning materials in 2015 when I attended ASCD Empower in Houston, Texas. One of the general session speakers was Sarah Lewis, author, curator, and historian. The title of her talk was The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. She spoke about the mindset that is needed to engage in creative endeavors. She told us how play, grit, surrender, dismissed ideas, experiments, and follow-ups had led to breakthroughs for people.
Today’s Classroom
Having been a writer and editor for many years, I felt validated by her understanding of all the possible outcomes that creative endeavors can produce. I had experienced failure in my professional life. Some of the learning resources that we published didn’t sell well. We knew they provided valuable content, but for some reason, teachers did not purchase them. We needed to re-evaluate them. We needed to better understand what teachers wanted and needed and revise them accordingly. As the editorial team went through this process, we felt that we had failed; we hadn’t done a good enough job. But as we made our way through the design process, we were amazed to see that our revisions truly made the resources better. It was only then that I came to appreciate the benefits of failure and understand how important this mindset would be in 21st-century classrooms.
Importance of the STEM Process
As I learned more about STEM, the design process, and design thinking, I felt reassured knowing that students would learn how important it is to be in an environment in which they can take chances, dream, create new things, knowing that not all of these things would be the end result they envisioned. But that’s okay—the process of empathizing, problem-solving, communicating, and creating something to meet people’s needs is its own reward. It is in the testing, revising, and recreating that you can find satisfaction.
Motivation and Perseverance
So, as you bring STEM challenges and design thinking into your classroom environment, consider the mindset that you will model and share with your students. Consider the freedom one must feel in order to take a chance and create something that may fail, but will be amazing if it succeeds. What do your students need to feel in order to engage in those risks and have it motivate them instead of defeat them? STEM challenges provide the opportunity to help students adopt a mindset that will influence their work for the rest of their lives—their ability to persevere, to believe in the process, and to know that their success and self-worth are not determined by the outcome of the challenge, but are determined by their belief in themselves. We are part of fueling that belief. We are part of modeling the mindset that engages students in creative thinking. We are part of helping them understand that many times failure is one of the best stops on the road to success.
Additional Resources:
- Evan-Moor’s STEM Lessons and Challenges teacher’s resource (grades 1–6)
- Evan-Moor’s Smart Start STEM activity book (grades PreK–1)
Lisa Vitarisi Mathews is Evan-Moor’s executive editor. She has over 20 years’ experience in PreK–8 education, and has worked closely with teachers across the United States through Evan-Moor product training and workshops.