Boogie Into Failure & Risk-Taking

As I sat reading a book at the beach while on vacation, I looked up to see one of the most natural things in the world; kids playing, failing, and learning from each other. In-front of me formed a natural tide pool from the ocean and kids from the surrounding area began to flock to it with excitement and enthusiasm. Before you knew it, there were fifteen or so kids diving into the small pool, splashing around, and trying to zip their boogie boards across the water like a sled in the snow.

The first couple of kids who tried to slide across the water standing-up fell off of their board onto their butt and failed. Even when they "failed," they laughed, shook it off, and tried again without feeling sorry for themselves. The "innovators/leaders" set the example while the other kids learned from them, saw it was "fun to fail and try," thus creating an environment of ingenuity and innovation to figure out the best ways to slide across the water without falling off the board.

Watching this take place got me thinking about some important questions we need to ask ourselves in education...

As educators, where do we encourage our learners to fail in order to learn? Is this built into our lessons and curriculum? Do we challenge them to solve problems or spoon feed them everything?

Do students learn from play or is that taken from them by the time they get to middle school? Kids, no matter what age, need to play and find joy in their learning in order to get the most out of school.

Administrators, are you leading like an innovator with a growth mindset? Are you taking risks and demonstrating to your staff that it is OK to try new things, fail, and grow from them? In schools, just like in many organizations, the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. My point being that most educators are the kids on the sidelines of the pool wanting to watch and learn from the 20% of leaders and innovators. When the 80% sees something that works from the 20%, often they are willing to give it a try and learn.

Whether you are an educator or administrator, I challenge you to answer and reflect on these questions before the start of the school year. Your students and teachers deserve leaders who model innovation, creativity, and risk-taking. Boogie into the school year with a fresh and open mind!