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What if teachers praised failure?  I know, strange concept, but hear me out.  Half-way through this past semester, I was struck by the following quote (sadly, Yoda did not actually say this, all credit goes to Stephen McCranie):

I had hit a roadblock in my acting courses because my students were practically paralyzed by the fear of failure.  There is constant pressure on our students to be perfect or the best, and how well they do is so interconnected with their self-esteem!  On top of that, "failure" is so much more public in acting than in core academics.

In my acting classes, I shared this quote and everyone agreed that mistakes lead to success. We continued rehearsing “12 Angry Jurors,” but my students were still paralyzed. I used every pep talk and quote about failure leading to success imaginable and my students would once again all agree. But even though my students mentally seemed to understand the concept, they are each so hard-wired to avoid failure.  Finally (in a moment of what I thought was sheer insanity in taking a risk of failure myself), I made them perform "12 Angry Jurors" intentionally wrong.  I had them try the scene like it was a soap opera, a western, underwater, as divas, you name it!  Doing this led to crucial reflection, and perhaps most importantly, a willingness to laugh at our choices.  

From this place of “silliness”, we once again acknowledged that rehearsal was for failure.  That you need to sometimes find choices that don’t work in order to find choices that do work. I helped the class reframe our mindset by taking a page from our science teachers and asked students to think of rehearsal as an experiment. We took a scientific approach, sat down and hypothesized different tactics that might work. Then experimented (rehearsed) and chose the best option.  For example, Juror #3 begins Act 2 with the line, “Alright, what idiot changed his vote?”  We came up with three possible tactics: to challenge, to scorn, or to lambaste.  On paper, they all seem like good options, but how do you know which one really works?  By trying it.

As Edward Burger said, we were able to “embrace the realization that taking risks and failing are often the essential moves necessary to bring clarity, understanding, and innovation.” Edward Burger took teaching failure one step further by grading failure.  He asked his class to intentionally fail, and 5% of their final grade was the “quality of failure.”   For information on how he did this, check out:

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/08/21/essay-importance-teaching-failure

I was even more inspired by his ideas and decided it was time to rebrand failure in my classroom.  In science, they don’t call it , they call it data!  To rebrand, I started by praising it.  Praise in my classroom started to sound like, “I’m proud of you for finding the courage to try that choice.”  What a difference it made in rehearsal when I began to praise failed choices!  Students were finally making the bold, strong choices and taking the risks I longed for.  Then, I incorporated a “quality of failure” grade to their project exactly like Edward Burger, and students began to come to class prepared with options to try in rehearsal and excited to fail!