Here's to Failure

This morning I saw a segment on ESPN featuring 10 amazing accomplishments by female athletes.  On the list was Diana Nyad’s recent swim from Cuba to Florida without the help of a shark cage. She was the first person to ever accomplish this feat. It took her about 53 hours to swim the 110 miles. Now this story is interesting to me on a couple of levels.

First, I am a huge advocate of passion-based learning. As an educator, I believe that when we truly understand the passions of our students and create learning experiences for them that take advantage of those passions there is no limit to what they can accomplish. Diana had a passion for swimming and a goal of setting a record by making a daunting swim through shark infested sea water. Not something that I would personally consider, but it was her passion and she was determined to make it happen.

Second, I believe that unsuccessful endeavors (failures) are sometimes the best learning experiences that we can have. You see, this wasn’t Diana’s first attempt to make this historic swim. In fact, it was her fifth-attempt with each of the previous four ending short of her goal. Diana looked at the first four attempts as learning opportunities. Each time she stepped back in the water she made adjustments based on her previous trials and managed to get a little closer to her goal.

Too often in education we don’t allow our students enough opportunities to learn from their mistakes. We see failure as the end of a learning path, an “F” on a test, and not as a pit stop on the journey. When we do this we teach students that failure is bad, when in fact it’s a natural part of learning. Failure should be viewed as an authentic learning opportunity. Imagine how different Diana’s life would have been if she had viewed her first failed attempt in 1978 as the end of her journey and not as a pit stop on the way to fulfill her passion.

When Diana emerged on the Florida beach she said, “I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dream. Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team.” I think each one of these statements applies to education. One is, we should never allow our students to accept failure as the end, to give up on learning, and we can’t give up on them just because they found a pit stop we didn’t expect. Two is, we need to help our students understand their passions and enable them to reach those dreams. Three is, learning is not a solitary activity, it is a collaborative endeavor and we need to encourage that philosophy.