EDUCATION
By Nick Fanthorpe, Head of English, Hurst College
Treading the line between success and failure in the classroom Failure might not be the best word. As an English teacher I want students to be willing to be wrong. In fact, I probably don’t want them to think in terms of being right or wrong. An excellent English student isn’t one who gets all the answers ‘right’; an excellent English student is one who can creatively and convincingly support their interpretations in discussion and in writing. Giving students the confidence to do this is one of the primary responsibilities of a teacher. This is where finding an equilibrium between success and ‘failure’ becomes so important.
Students should fail occasionally and succeed often. One of the great challenges of building a productive and inspiring classroom environment is finding the right balance between success and failure. If students get everything right all the time, then they will feel great about themselves but almost certainly are not being stretched enough or learning the resilience that comes with occasional failures. If students can’t get anything right, then the classroom becomes an incredibly alienating place.
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In Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know (2012), he quotes research which “suggests that the optimal success rate for fostering student achievement appears
If students get everything right ❛❛ all the time, then they will feel great
about themselves but almost certainly are not being stretched enough or learning the resilience that comes with occasional failures ❜❜
