Learn From Your Mistakes

"You learn from your mistakes."  We have all heard it.  In fact, as educators, we have probably all said it.  I find it to be a very accurate statement and I would guess that many would agree with me.  It is through the mistakes that we make that we learn new or better ways to do something.  When we make a mistake, we have the opportunity to learn something new.  The statement seems to ring true for the learning process.  The problem is this:  We don't live it!

In our schools today, we can find many anxiety riddled children who definitely don't believe that mistakes are a good thing.  They honestly believe that they need to be perfect and that students who make mistakes are not "good" students.  One might wonder- "How did this happen?"   I can certainly point to a few practices that might have contributed to this phenomenon.

I will start with the practice of grading homework.  Homework should be a time to practice, make mistakes, and learn from them.  When a student receives a grade on their "practice", the message they are receiving is that their practice needs to be perfect if they want to receive a high grade.  Students should be given the opportunity to make mistakes and learn how to perform a task or skill through multiple practice opportunities before they are subjected to a "grade".  As a softball player, practice was a time when I could try new things with my swing or my throw, whereas it was during games when I was "graded" on my performance.  I certainly would not take a risk on trying something new with my swing when I was in a game trying to score runs for my team.  On the other hand, I would never have improved as a player if I did not have a chance to make adjustments during practice.

Another common practice in education that may be contributing to a misconception about the value of learning from mistakes is what I will call "hand holding" or "enabling".  This leads to learned helplessness and it produce students who are not willing to engage themselves in challenges.  What I am referencing here is the fact that teachers often provide students with very specific steps or directions to solve problems or complete tasks instead of providing open ended tasks to allow students to figure it out themselves.  I am also referencing the tendency of teachers to step in and help students before they have had a chance to really struggle.  While I understand teachers' desire for students to know exactly what to do and their concern about students getting frustrated, these behaviors do not encourage students to make mistakes and learn from them.

If we truly value mistakes and believe that children learn from them, we must allow students to re-do their work when it is not correct.  This is their opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned from their mistakes.  We also need to engage students in activities that are challenging enough to ensure that they will make mistakes, and then we need to celebrate the mistakes and highlight the learning occurs as a result.