Did you know there is always something to learn from failure. Well there is. For example, one evening I was cooking dinner for my family and it did not turn out great. I was making Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. We had two different boxes: the regular noodles and Scooby-Doo shaped noodles. Well it turns out the regular noodles cook a lot faster than the specialty shaped noodles. The regular noodles wound up mush ruining it all, but we still ate it. Lesson learned don’t mix different noodle types when making Mac & Cheese.
So, why am I telling you all of this because it’s important to know that there’s always something to learn from failure. Whether you’re a student or a teacher you can always learn something from your mistakes.
As a student you learn what you still need more work on. What you need more practice with or need to study more. You also learn what you’re strengths and weaknesses are.
As a teacher you learn what strategies work and what strategies don’t work when teaching your students. You learn that what works for one student may not work for another. That’s where differentiation comes into play. You learn that if something isn’t working you need to adjust and figure out what you’re doing wrong and what you could be doing differently to make sure all of your students are learning what you want them to.
There is just so much to learn from failure. So the next time you feel like you failed just take a moment to reflect about what went wrong and how you can do better next time. Take it as a learning opportunity and make sure to let your students know it’s okay to make mistakes as long as they learn from them and use them as a way to better themselves.
