Failing Doesn't Make You a Failure
- a Rachel DeSena
- a
-
a 0 Comments
Date : 15 March, 2019
Does Failing Make You a Failure?
The idea of a growth mindset is something we discuss frequently at Method. We discuss it with our students when we review their test scores and course progress and we discuss it among ourselves as employees when we meet and plan how to best serve our families. But if overused “growth mindset” just turns into a buzzword. So I have been challenging myself to better understand the growth mindset with the hopes of fully developing it within myself, my students, my colleagues, and my family. To begin, I am trying to really understand the growth mindset by finding examples of it all around me and alternatively, non-examples.
This week I was teaching middle school students how to read and respond in writing to nonfiction articles. We were reading a biographical article about Shaun White. If you are not familiar with him, Shaun White is a successful athlete. He falls firmly in the extreme sports world, as a skateboarder and snowboarder, from right here in SoCal! By all measures of the word, Shaun White is a success! During our lesson, the students and I learned that at a very young age he became a professional athlete, broke a multitude of records, and won a bounty of gold medals in both the Olympics and the X Games.
It all sounded very impressive. But I was surprised to read that Shaun came up short in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He didn’t win any medals! The article made a point to say that he didn’t win anything. Which got me thinking about that growth mindset. Here was a perfect teachable growth mindset moment! Shaun White is a superb athlete, but he didn’t medal in Sochi even though he had many other gold medals, does that make him a failure? He was quoted as saying “You’d think losing would be the end of things, but it was just the beginning. Instead of letting it destroy me, I sat back and asked myself, ‘What do I really want to do now?”. Wow, if that is not the embodiment of a growth mindset then I don’t know what is! Shaun White’s success has continued because of his growth mindset. He could have let not medaling in Sochi devastate him, but he didn’t, he looked at it as an opportunity for growth!
As a society, we often celebrate people, like Shaun White, for their success but we never take a look at the failures that those successful people endure. Some of the most celebrated and successful people in our culture suffered many failures before becoming successful. This article describes 15 very successful people who failed many times before we ever heard of them. Among these greats are Oprah, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, and Walt Disney! By ignoring the failures of people we consider to be successful and only focuses on their triumphs we forget how success does not come easily! Most people who achieve great things work very hard and fail many times. We do our children, and even ourselves, a disservice by not explaining that. No one is just either a success or a failure. Everything we do has consequences, either good ones or bad ones. Working hard and doing the right thing usually pays off and people who become successful have qualities such as tenacity, persistence, and determination.
Rather than teaching our kids that some people in life are successful simply because they are great, let’s teach them that successful people fail too. Everyone fails but that is not the end of the story. What matters is how do we react to failure? Do we give up or do we keep at and keep working hard to achieve our goals? Let’s never discourage failure but instead look at it as an opportunity to grow, just like Shaun White did!
Do you know of anyone, either famous or someone you know personally, that has failed but is still considered to be a success? I would love to hear of any! And if you can’t think of any take a look at the article linked above. Did you know all of those people failed so many times before becoming successful? I was surprised!
- Charter Schools (44)
- Online Learning (39)
- Project Based Learning (35)
- School Choice (23)
- Method Schools (22)
- Small Class Sizes (21)
- Online Curriculum (19)
- online high school (16)
- online home school (16)
- homeschooling (14)
- smartfox (14)
- Independent Study (13)
- Service Learning (13)
- home school (12)
- personalization (10)
- Class Size (9)
- online homeschool (9)
- quality schools (9)
- virtual school (9)
- Innovation (8)
- Method High School (8)
- Blended Learning (7)
- Choosing the Right School (7)
- E-Learning (7)
- Homeschool with Method Schools (7)
- Online charter school (7)
- Robotics (7)
- Summer School (7)
- Traditional School (7)
- homeschooling, routine (7)
- online middle school (7)
- public charter school (7)
- teacher support (7)
- virtual school routine (7)
- Class Size Reduction (6)
- Data Driven Education (6)
- homeschool decision (6)
- virtual school setting (6)
- Character Education (5)
- Non-traditional schools (5)
- Virtual School Looks Like (5)
- curriculum (5)
- homeschool (5)
- online summer school (5)
- typical day in a virtual school (5)
- Breakthrough Schools (4)
- Change (4)
- Field Trips (4)
- Focused Direct Instruction (4)
- STEM Charter School (4)
- STEM School (4)
- adaptive curriculum (4)
- community service (4)
- focus (4)
- homeschool academics (4)
- homeschool curriculum (4)
- homeschool tips (4)
- online public schools (4)
- personalized instruction (4)
- school districts (4)
- school expectations (4)
- student athlete (4)
- teacher quality (4)
- testing (4)
- AB 1505 (3)
- AB 1507 (3)
- Differentiation (3)
- EdTech (3)
- Getting into college (3)
- PBL (3)
- Virtual public school (3)
- academic growth (3)
- common core (3)
- culture (3)
- education funding (3)
- educational freedom (3)
- elearning (3)
- experiental learning (3)
- hands-on learning (3)
- homework help for parents (3)
- individualized learning (3)
- middle school (3)
- parent teacher communication (3)
- parenting (3)
- personalized learning (3)
- remote work (3)
- school flexibility (3)
- school routine (3)
- study tips (3)
- success (3)
- teacher availability (3)
- tiles (3)
- AB 1506 (2)
- COVID-19 (2)
- California legislature (2)
- Customized Classroom (2)
- Goals (2)
- Homeschooling solution (2)
- LMS (2)
- Leadership (2)
- Learning Disabilities (2)
- Motivation (2)
- Online high school classes (2)
- Outcomes (2)
- Rotational Model (2)
- SIS (2)
- Socialization (2)
- Station Rotation (2)
- UC a-g (2)
- back to school (2)
- best school fit (2)
- caasap (2)
- charter school funding (2)
- education budgets (2)
- enrollment (2)
- enrollment growth (2)
- extra-curricular activities (2)
- flexible school schedule (2)
- free summer school (2)
- good curriculum (2)
- grit (2)
- growth mindset (2)
- highly-qualified teachers (2)
- homeschool research (2)
- homeschool socialization (2)
- how to study (2)
- is school a fit (2)
- online (2)
- online elementary school (2)
- online school (2)
- opportunities to serve (2)
- remote learning (2)
- schools and dyslexia (2)
- succeed in school (2)
- summer enrichment ideas (2)
- test prep (2)
- ADD (1)
- ADHD (1)
- ADHD holidays (1)
- Accountability (1)
- Accredited homeschool programs (1)
- Activities for kids (1)
- Audio Notes (1)
- California LCFF (1)
- Doctorate (1)
- Dyslexia (1)
- Dyslexia help (1)
- Education Dogma (1)
- Exercise (1)
- FDI (1)
- Graduation (1)
- Grants (1)
- Help for Learning Disabilities (1)
- Holiday Volunteer Opportunities (1)
- Homeschool misconceptions (1)
- How to take notes (1)
- Learning help (1)
- Legislation (1)
- Los Angeles Charter Schools (1)
- NCAA approved (1)
- NGLC (1)
- Note Taking Tips (1)
- Online charter schools (1)
- Outlining Notes (1)
- Parents and Dyslexia (1)
- PhD (1)
- Robotics in School (1)
- STEM Education (1)
- STEM Program (1)
- Schoolism (1)
- Science (1)
- Science Fair (1)
- Student Marketing Projects (1)
- Technology in Education (1)
- Tenacity (1)
- Traditional Public School (1)
- Virtual schools in California (1)
- WASC (1)
- WInter Vacation (1)
- What is Dyslexia (1)
- Why did I choose to homeschool (1)
- Why homeschool (1)
- achievement (1)
- alternative education (1)
- alternative learning (1)
- anti virus (1)
- athletics (1)
- automation (1)
- autumn service learning project (1)
- blue track (1)
- breakfast and school performance (1)
- bullying (1)
- careers (1)
- charter school gro (1)
- children with developmental disorder (1)
- connected learning (1)
- custom online courses (1)
- customer-centric schools (1)
- data (1)
- diagramming notes (1)
- distance learning (1)
- does virtual school work (1)
- equality (1)
- failure (1)
- flexibility (1)
- give back to the community, giving back (1)
- growth in charter schools (1)
- haiti fundraiser (1)
- holiday stress for kids (1)
- homeschool and college (1)
- homeschool objections (1)
- homeschooling saves money (1)
- how to enroll at method (1)
- how to outline (1)
- importance of breakfast (1)
- jade fernandez (1)
- kindness (1)
- learning management system (1)
- method dirt team (1)
- mind mapping notes (1)
- mobility (1)
- mountain biking (1)
- myths about charter schools (1)
- no help for bullying problem (1)
- notetaking (1)
- online safety (1)
- open records (1)
- plan c (1)
- problems with school clicks and bullying (1)
- professional development (1)
- psychological stress of school overcrowding (1)
- public schools (1)
- public tax dollars (1)
- red ocean (1)
- robotics program (1)
- safety (1)
- san diego charter schools (1)
- school funding (1)
- school not working (1)
- school overcrowding (1)
- school partnerships (1)
- school problems (1)
- school social hierarchy (1)
- smaller schools (1)
- sportsmanship (1)
- spring break (1)
- stem (1)
- student actor (1)
- student blogs (1)
- student conflicts (1)
- student data (1)
- student information system (1)
- students who are behind not getting help (1)
- taking notes (1)
- teaching your child how to give back (1)
- the foundry (1)
- transparency (1)
- virtual public schools (1)
- volunteering (1)
- volunteering ideas (1)
- what is a good school (1)
- what is a virtual school (1)
- what makes a good school (1)
- when to leave a school (1)
- why do we have school problems (1)
- why do we have school shootings (1)
- why should I homeschool (1)
- winter break (1)