Learning from failure
Thursday, April 5th, 2012I’m indebted to Phil Langton to pointing me towards an article by Steven Schwartz in Times Higher Education. The article, Get back in the saddle, explores the way in which failure and life’s knocks can lead to success in the future.
The theme is similar to that discussed in comments on a previous post of mine. I think it is certainly the case that we sometimes molycoddle our students. It doesn’t seem right to be deliberately hard or harsh in our grading or feedback, but I think we should be honest. If a student’s work is not up to the mark, we should tell them. It may be painful for all, but if the article is to believed (and it rings true) this approach may be just what is needed in order to encourage our students to succeed in the future.