Drop an Egg! Build a paper boat that floats on water! Create a superhero with useless powers! This is just a glimpse into the power of bringing purposeful failure into your classroom. Why? Failure creates friction, which creates creativity and learning opportunities. If we fail without consequences, we can teach the brain how to learn from failure, not fear it.
Education Week recently featured LetMeFail, the program I co-founded with Chic Thompson – UVA professor of Entrepreneurship and founder of WAGiLabs.org. In the article reporter Sarah Sparks interviewed three educators who have brought failure into their classroom. Here’s what they said…
- “As parents, teachers, coaches, I think we all try to protect kids from failing—we try to get them exact directions to follow and so on—but by doing this, we’re preventing kids from failing and learning from their mistakes,” said Alicia Wiechert, a K-4 library and information specialist at Romona Elementary School in Wilmette, Ill.
- “They were like, ‘You want us to not do good?’” recalled Jennifer Boogaart (educator in NW Arkansas). “And I said yes. … I just talked to them about how mistakes aren’t failures. They make you more creative and smarter and unstoppable.”
- Doreen Kelleher, the Massachusetts 4th grade teacher, now keeps a “failure wall” in which students can post mistakes and what they learned from them. “I saw so much growth in the kiddos, especially the ones that before, couldn’t put a pen to paper because they were so fearful … that’s not good enough,” Kelleher said. “I just wanted to break through that mindset and say, ‘see, it’s OK. Actually, this mistake is going to teach us something.’”
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/want-students-to-be-resilient-try-asking-them-to-fail/2025/09
Download failure activities and exercises for your classroom at LetMeFail.org!
