xFailure The key to creativity & success NATHAN MORTON, DIRECTOR OF TEACHING & LEARNING
The feeling of ‘failure’ is experienced when we set expectations of ourselves and fall short of achieving these. Similarly, ‘mistakes’ are simply a deviation from our extrinsic or intrinsic expectations. The skill of ‘reflection’ is critical in enabling the ability to proactively acknowledge mistakes, failures, or shortcomings as learning opportunities. Recognising failures and mistakes, and engaging in meaningful reflection, are two practices we do not execute well as a society. We can see some of the reasons for this in every learning institution around the world. Schools are mandated to present student progress and achievement against an objective five-point scale in a report twice per year. Fulfilling this legislative obligation is vexing for teachers, who often feel that the process is excessively results-driven and does not leave room to accurately reflect the specifics of an individual student’s situation. Equally frustrating is the need to be constantly preparing students for examinations at the end of Year 12. Teaching exam techniques in an effort to optimise results, rather than being able to simply focus on learning. These situations, and others like them, are a necessary part of teaching and are beyond the control
8 Ad Astra Issue No 145
of any school. Yet, the unfortunate reality is that it confines the student experience to unrealistically focus on ‘success’ being nothing short of an ‘A+’ grade. The problem is that students often grow to fear mistakes or failure. This fear is only exacerbated by practices like VCE rankings, where learners feel the need to look sideways and compare their achievements against others. In practical terms, a fear of mistakes can mean that students learn to avoid taking healthy risks in their learning. Rather than taking a more left-field, creative approach to arrive at a new solution, students will instead make the safer choice. They fear not meeting the objective, arbitrary criteria of an assessment, so don’t take a chance. Sir Ken Robinson explained this beautifully when he said, during a 2006 California TED Talk, “Picasso once said this, he said that ‘all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we
grow up’. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it.” To extend this thinking, we also get ‘educated out of’ being reflective, being resilient, having ambition to grow, taking risks, and being willing to make mistakes and learn from them. The way our current system is framed perceives students who are not in the ‘A’ or ‘A+’ echelons as ‘below par’. In fact, the grading system itself represents A+ students as ‘perfect’; they could not have performed better, and they have nothing left to learn in the area being assessed. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, the artificial ceiling that “A+” creates, disables the potential for student agency and the ability of the high-achieving individual to take the experience to the next level. Secondly, when the high-achiever falls short of their own expectations, they become debilitated by the outcome and disengage from
