There is a contradiction at the heart of education which is having a significant impact on the learning and the happiness of many young people in school. It is this: if your goal is a place at highly-regarded university, you must be as near perfect as you can manage in order to get a place.
However, the very act of learning requires that we put the search for perfection to one side and have a go at everything. The example I often give to my pupils is to imagine the state the world would be in if a baby, when trying to take its first steps and falling over, decided “clearly I can’t do this, I don’t want to keep failing and so I am going to give up and perfect the art of crawling.”
“Every invention or discovery mankind has made has been through this method.”
If Mozart had sat at his first piano and, failing to play a perfect tune first time, had simply said “I’m not risking failure here, so I’ll just not bother trying anymore.”
To progress, we need trial and error. Every invention or discovery mankind has made has been through this method and, without perseverance through failure, we would be in a sorry state. Not only is learning important, but the method of learning has a long-term impact on our future lives.
It is easy to see these examples as obvious, but they apply to everyday learning in the classroom and beyond. The trick therefore has to be to normalise struggle and often failure and demonstrate day and daily how this leads ultimately to learning and understanding. There are many classrooms countrywide where this is a daily occurrence.
We have seen it in my school, the all-girls Lady Eleanor Holles School (LEH) in Hampton, Middlesex. This is a high-achieving environment, with university (almost invariably Russell Group) as the goal to which the vast majority aspire, and for which (frankly) parents feel they are paying.
“Changing the mindset of an entire school pupil, parent and staff body was no easy matter.”
Achieving the grades to get into a top university will be fairly useless if students don’t also have the skills and attitudes needed to make progress once they are there. And afterwards, being able to operate in a volatile and uncertain world is increasingly important to employers. Building epistemic character that equips students to grapple with the complex problems of life today, many of which do not have a clear or perfect solution, eg, climate change and technological developments, is of great value in practical terms.
As you can imagine, changing the mindset of an entire school pupil, parent and indeed staff body, to embrace struggle and failure as integral to the learning process, was no easy matter.
We approached this in four ways:
- We started by talking about it in assemblies and then continued to talk about it ALL the time: in assemblies, in class, in 1:1 sessions with pupils, in teacher INSET sessions.
- We introduced the Learning Power Approach of Guy Claxton. There are alternative theories and practical means to encourage risk-taking in the classroom and beyond, but this one we felt would work best in LEH.
- We stopped marking homework and class work with numbers and grades. Instead, we commented on what went well, and how the child could make it even better. Removing the focus on final outcome as the only measure of success is central to encouraging trial and error in learning, where gradual accumulation of knowledge and skills is the goal.
- We demonstrate it in our lessons – teachers were encouraged to try new methods and, if they didn’t work, find ways to demonstrate what they learned from this failure, to their classes. Members of our Teacher Learning Community share action research from their classroom experimentation with the whole staff body, demonstrating to colleagues the value and rewards to the pupils of this approach.
The Learning Power Approach (LPA) encourages two modes of behaviour: learning mode (with concomitant acceptance of grapple and failure along the way) and then performing mode. It thus recognises that the one occasion when you do not want to risk failure is of course when taking public exams. This is when high level performance is required, getting as much right as possible.
“Even in exams there are times when taking a risk is important.”
However, it isn’t always as easy as that. Even in exams there are times when taking a risk is important: guessing the answer is a lot better than leaving it blank. Research has shown that this is often difficult for girls in particular: they are less likely to just guess at an answer in multiple choice questions for example.
Having the confidence to take a guess (you’ll be right some of the time, so it’s worth a go) is something you need to learn. You don’t lose marks by getting things wrong, but you guarantee no marks if you leave a blank!
Exam technique is a skill which must also be taught (my views on this are a whole different article – for another day perhaps!). The most basic element of this technique is not to spend too much time on one answer.
“If they are struggling in class, they expect the teacher to zoom in and tell them what to do.”
Trying to perfect this in the search for full marks will usually result in lost marks in other questions. This is a common reason for not doing well in university aptitude tests. The mark schemes for these are often designed to reward attempts at all questions, rather than perfect answers to some questions and blanks for others.
In our move towards removing perfectionism and welcoming grapple and failure, where did we face most difficulty? Parents and pupils usually assume that the role of a teacher is to tell pupils the answers. If they are struggling in class, they expect the teacher to zoom in and tell them what to do. In order to build learning power, it is necessary to leave the pupils to grapple with the problems themselves.
They can access text books, help one another and, only if they are still stuck, should they resort to asking the teacher for help. Good examples of the help they will get include the teacher asking questions with a view to leading the pupil to their own understanding. There is significant evidence to show that learning achieved through a pupil’s own efforts, will stick far better than things they are told by a teacher.
“I made our methodology clear in my speeches to prospective parents.”
Core to this is of course, a basic knowledge and understanding to get started. We do not expect pupils just magically to know things! We may give them preparatory reading as homework (flipped learning) prior to a lesson, so that they have a starting point gained through their own efforts. Or we may go through basics together in class before setting more challenging work.
A few parents did complain when teachers appeared not to help their children and so educating parents was an essential part of what we did. I made our methodology clear in my speeches to prospective parents at open mornings. We reminded parents through letters and blogs at the start of new school years, and we held evening talks and advice sessions (on line and in person) to explain our approach.
Parents also wanted to know what they should do to help their children at home. We asked them not to query what marks/grades they achieved, but rather to ask them what they had learned that day.
To pursue this further, they could ask their child to explain this to them (this is a really good way to embed learning). Like teachers, they too want to swoop in with the answers if their child is struggling with homework and, like teachers, we encouraged them to ask questions rather than giving answers. Above all, we strive to ensure that parents’ assistance at home does not run contradictory to the way we teach in school, although you can imagine that this is not always successful.
“We strive to ensure that parents’ help at home does not contradict the way we teach in school.”
It is truly inspiring to observe a learning power lesson! LEH’s ISI inspectors were deeply impressed by the level to which pupils engage actively in their own learning, work through problems on their own, help one another, and ultimately achieve understanding and capability. The delight experienced when a pupil suddenly ‘gets it’ through their own efforts, is thrilling both for them and for their teacher.
Our goal for all pupils is that they leave LEH as enthusiastic, independent, risk-takers, with the confidence to grab opportunities that come their way, knowing that, even if they risk failure, they will be able to handle it, take it in their stride, and learn from it.
Fear of failure is reductive – it prevents so many from trying new and exciting things, it restricts their life chances and career opportunities. Learning to cope with failure in the safe environment of a school not only improves learning, it is an invaluable life skill.