Frustration. Failure. Setbacks. Nobody likes them, but they’re necessary for growth. This is especially true for students.
Whether it’s a low grade on a test or a lost debate, roadblocks like these provide a unique opportunity to learn resilience. What’s more, students usually rise to the occasion with enhanced creativity in problem-solving too.
The reality is that although it’s not great to experience at the moment, setbacks form the foundation of true innovation.
The Science of Learning from Failure
Research shows that setbacks actually do have a positive impact on learning, even though students try to avoid them at all costs. That’s because failing doesn’t feel good.
However, Professor Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School, suggests leaning into productive or “intelligent failure”. This involves becoming curious about why you didn’t succeed, and then going through steps of learning and innovation to solve the problem.
When students are in an environment that encourages failure, they naturally develop the resilient habit of working through a problem until they find a solution. Repeating this approach helps them hone valuable skills in critical thinking that will serve them long after they’ve graduated.
Resilience Breeds Success
It’s difficult to talk about encouraging failure because it is necessary for growth when we live in a society that focuses on the direct opposite, success. Students will therefore not see failure as a point of learning.
Analyzing a problem is what helps students better understand what’s needed to resolve it, and thus succeed. That’s because you can’t know how to solve a problem if there is never a problem.
Resilience can only come from persevering through setbacks, as some of history’s greatest minds have shown us. J.K. Rowling was rejected several times before a publisher agreed to sign Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Oprah Winfrey got fired for not being good enough for television.
With a growth mindset, students will learn to see failure as a bump in the road instead of a canyon they can’t traverse.
Resilience is them finding a way over that bump to keep going.
Learning Accountability and Responsibility
Research from Frontiers in Education (2023) highlights the importance of students taking ownership of their learning. When they embrace responsibility, students are more motivated and achieve better academic results.
This shows that lessons in accountability don’t just lead to success in the classroom, but shape the way students assume responsibility in their professional lives too.
There are unfortunately too many cases where the opposite is true, companies or people failing to act responsibly and the public having to pay the price.
The spinal cord stimulator lawsuit is a clear example of what could happen when accountability falls short. These medical devices are designed to alleviate pain, but some of them malfunction and leave patients with more health complications.
According to TruLaw, many families now find themselves in a cycle of chronic pain and injury. A failure or malfunction of a spinal cord stimulator can lead to life-threatening infection and even worse pain than before.
Learning how accountability impacts their success should therefore be a crucial part of a student’s education. It teaches them to assess risks, question sources, and demand the same accountability from others.
Encouraging a Mindset for Growth
Setbacks are seen as opportunities when parents and teachers work together to reframe what failure means. These are a few tried-and-tested strategies to help.
- Normalize failure. Speak about well-known public figures and share stories about how they demonstrate resilience and learn from setbacks. Extra points if examples of setbacks can be proven as necessary for their ultimate success.
- Encourage problem-solving. Prompt students to work through roadblocks, instead of immediately giving solutions. A good method is to reward failure and then double the reward once it’s resolved.
- Celebrate perseverance. A critical precursor to resilience is persistence. Recognize students for their ability to stick things through.
- Give feedback. Regular, constructive feedback removes the focus from outcomes of success or failure. Instead, it shows students that every step of the process is valuable. This helps to shift focus to effort and learning.
- Teach self-reflection. Analysis is key to learning from previous mistakes and then improving to find a solution. Understanding where mistakes were made is a step in the right direction.
- Highlight the importance of progress. It’s an improvement if a student produces a result that’s better than the previous one. It doesn’t matter whether the problem was solved, but that learning is happening.
When students come to understand that failure and setbacks are not only a natural part of learning but a necessary one, they will view obstacles in a more positive light. It’s in this mindset shift that significant leaps are made in the development of creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and resilience.
