FEATURE
FAILING FORWARD Never Give Up Middle school teacher Beth Melfi wants your child to fail. A lot. But don’t worry: her ultimate goal is for kids to be successful. Beth knows that failure is a scary concept, for kids and adults. Our students struggle already—Beth wants them to understand why, and be strategic. She wants to break the stigma of failure, and reframe it as a natural part of any endeavor. Beth says, “Being successful is a repeated journey of failure, over and over again. The difference is in how you
complete a difficult maze, and she listened closely as the students said “It’s so hard!” and “I’ll never get out of here!” as they attempted to solve the puzzle. When they were done, Beth asked, “What happened when you got to a dead end?” Many reported that they had reversed out and took another route. Beth drove her symbolic point home: if you stand still when you hit a wall, it’s failure. If you plan other options, it’s failing forward. In her seventh grade science class, Beth began the year with a single prompt: Can you create a bubble inside a bubble? She provided just the materials and the task, and through observation, hypothesis, planning, and multiple experiments, they learned just what it takes to make that happen. In addition to driving hands-on scientific inquiry, the students also quickly learned about the necessity of failing over and over again to succeed. Beth understands that creating a safe space is essential if students are going to fail forward productively. The process of helping students to believe that they are truly in a space where they can feel free to make mistakes takes time, and
Beth Melfi encourages her students to learn from failure. look at the failure.” Beth encourages her students to “lean into the failure.” It’s saying to yourself, “Okay, here’s how I failed. Here’s how I’ll do it next time.” This year, Beth started her middle school classes with the theme of failure. In language arts, she had her students
9 Benchmark Magazine | Winter 2020
