Succeed at Failure

You Really Can't Succeed Without Some Failure

By Amy E. Barr with The Lukeion Project
An earlier version of this article appeared in The Old Schoolhouse in 2012

As every new school year starts, I will find out interesting tidbits about my students… like how this student is gifted or that student is challenged. All students are expected to complete the same assignments and quizzes on schedule. Here’s the interesting part: many of my gifted students do a superb job until they have a bad week. One or two low quiz scores later and some of my cleverest kids will give up. Meanwhile, my average and challenged students keep going, calmly taking setbacks in stride.

There’s no mystery here. Gifted students tend to be self-critical but as perfectionists even while difficult subjects come easily to them. They rarely meet a mental mountain they can’t climb, so failure is rare. When it does happen, the sting is especially painful. Average and challenged students are more accustomed to academic struggle. A little failure (or at least not highest success) may be on the menu daily for these learners. In turn, they respond more casually to disappointments. Experience tells them that failure isn’t fatal, and life goes on. Consequently, many parents of gifted kids are constantly looking for challenging subjects, not just to avoid boredom but also to maintain a healthy response to adversities.

Enter the study of Classical Latin or Greek: Even if a student has been brought up by a pair of Classics professors, he is not going to be spontaneously brilliant in these challenging topics—just ask my adult kids. Learning Latin or Greek is always a matter of hard work. Success and failure will come to all. Only hard work will mark the difference. This can be earth-shattering to the perfectionist who misinterprets the struggle to learn a tough subject as being “bad” at that subject. It can alternatively become a great opportunity to learn how to succeed at a little failure.

Do you grant lots of do-overs, re-tries, and mulligans? Does your child get second, third, and fourth chances on every academic challenge? Do you set deadlines for academic projects and then move those goals back two or three times? From time to time, all of us unintentionally prevent our children from mastering healthy recovery from failure by shielding them from failures. With the best intentions, we may try to nurture our children so carefully that they don’t suffer a real academic setback prior to college. By then, the first low grade or poor paper may be emotionally crushing and financially costly.

Extra chances, no firm deadlines, and daily do-overs may seem like a great way to teach a subject well—but be careful. Deliberately shielding a student from failure will do measurable damage. Students who should otherwise be flourishing will instead fail to develop confidence, self-esteem, or resilience. Such qualities are the result of a healthy response to, and recovery from, adversity.
Motivational teacher Paul J. Meyer summarized our need for a balance of success and failure with these words: “By seeing the seed of failure in every success, we remain humble. By seeing the seed of success in every failure we remain hopeful.” What can you do to improve healthy failure recovery in your student’s world?

First, if you are your child’s primary educator, check your own teaching habits. If your child learns in a more conventional schooling environment, examine expectations.  Can your student constantly retake quizzes, re-do assignments, and push back deadlines? Firm up expectations and stick to stated consequences.

Second, raise the bar. Increase challenges, set expectations high, and then model healthy recovery when inevitable failures arise. Playing a musical instrument or reading a foreign language (such as Latin and Greek) is terrific at providing challenges, failure recovery, and pride over hard-won success when it comes.

Finally, praise your child for being determined instead of smart. Enthusiastically celebrate the hard work involved in a difficult task. A person’s determination is always a better determination of success compared to natural talent. Everything will come with more practice and more hard work. Success is 80% determination and 20% smarts. All of the latter can be compensated for if one has enough determination.

No matter how smart you are, you’ll experience trial and error, failure and success, good days and bad days. Learning that failure isn’t fatal is the first step toward lifelong success. Provide challenges for yourself (or your learner) so you have the opportunity for a bit of failure every day. Experience failure and then, most importantly, respond to that failure realistically and with determination to push on into growth.