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What does failing mean to you as a teacher?

By Monica Kochar

| 23 Feb 2022

Failing

My definition of failing would be when the kids (Holt, pp.1) fail to develop more than a tiny part of the capacity for learning, understanding and creating. This is what they were born and of which they made full use during, the first two or three years of their lives. I believe the main reason is their fear of (Holt, pp.1) failing, of displeasing the many adults around them, whose expectations keep them always anxious! Hence, in my opinion, adults in families and schools cause kids to fail. Especially (Madda, 2018 the way schools are constructed. For adults use the word ‘fail’ as a stamp and not as a step on the way to learning something. What if we change the connotation of failure?

An Effective Teacher

An effective teacher would see his/her work as that of a gardener setting up the ecosystem in which all children in the class can thrive. The teacher would have a meaning of success for different children, enabling personalized learning in the class. The teachers and schools (Holt, pp.4) would not blame the children for anything but would take responsibility for themselves. And they would be fluid or nimble and be quick to drop something if it did not work. They flunked unsuccessful methods, not the children.

Differentiation

As per Jean Piaget (Seifert & Sutton, 2009, pp.45). Children go through the stages of physical, emotional, and then cognitive development across the ages. So the meaning of failure perhaps would be associated with the stages described. Early childhood would need a space for physical exploration, middle childhood for physical and emotional, and adolescence for emotional and cognitive.

But it would be the same at each stage in the sense that the teacher would need to believe that the child is not failing, the ecosystem is.

And would be ready to adapt, accommodate and adjust.

About the author

Monica Kochar started her career as a Maths teacher in 1993. She has years of experience as a Maths Curriculum Designer with leading education platforms. This write-up has been reproduced from ' Humane Maths ' with the Author's consent. Any views expressed are personal.