The Success of Failure

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

This blog transition is rife with failures in formatting and wording. I see that as a positive. I choose to see it as a positive.

Jeff Selingo, from The Chronicle of Higher Education, posted an article this week on LinkedIn. It was called "College Majors of the Future?"

He challenged the overall need for majors in most cases, noting that most children want to be football players, nurses, teachers, doctors, and firefighters. The kids grow up. They learn new options. New career options are created. Majors don't matter, kids. Ironically, this post went public on LinkedIn, where there may not be a plethora of high school upperclassmen in the readership. Not sure he cares, though. This seemed to be "a conversation that was meant to be overheard."

He admonishes entering freshmen to do four things to become successful:

• Focus Less on Classes and More on Faculty. One study shows new students need to connect to at least one professor, personally.
• Dive Into a Research Project. This gives you a chance to "put it all together" when results are unknown.
• Study Abroad. Selingo notes many have life-changing experiences during these.
• Find Uncomfortable Experiences. You know, FAIL at stuff...and find places where such failure doesn't kill you.

Yes, these ideas probably make sense for students. Working among the liberal education leaders in higher education, I can vouch that they feel comfortable with these admonitions. In fact, they may be four good goals to have as a new student. Jeff tells the reader that businesses want people who can think for themselves and know how to learn new things. He goes on to say that (with some exceptions like Engineering) majors don't necessarily matter. I would say it still might be tougher to get a marketing job with a classics degree. "I know how to learn this" isn't as effective as "I learned this, already." If there's something you love, perhaps your college years are the ones where you jump in with both feet.

That's because if you really love marketing, a marketing major doesn't necessarily keep you from working in another field...like classical studies.

I usually point out that higher education would do well to pay attention to trends in K-12 education. However, this is one key area where higher education (especially liberal education) has approaches that would benefit the public schools in the United States. The whole idea of temporary failure should be promoted. I'm not alone. So does Will Rogers. In fact, Peter Dewitt thinks failure is a good thing for education. So do the fine folks at NITLE, my employer.

Kai Vallon asked about this "failure potential" when posting about Jeff Selingo's article in Conjectural Technologies. He lamented what has become of public schools and wondered openly what is holding us back.

Imagine a world where elementary school students have meaningful relationships with their teachers, are regularly exposed to new ideas and places, junior-high students start to take responsibility for their own learning by researching topics of interest to them, and high school students have the opportunity to see new lands and meet new people as a regular part of their education. How would the world be different with such students entering college or the workforce?

My guess is...better.

We encourage our kids to try new things. Youth soccer is a good example. Look at Pflugerville--God's Country--the 7-8-6-6-0: Eventually, over 12 soccer teams made up of 6-year-old boys become two teams of 14-year-olds. Eventually, we expect our children to fail at some of these things. Trying soccer, learning from the experience, and moving on is normal. Kids quit. Kids find out they're not very good. We encourage failure in the pursuit of success with our children. Sometimes we call it "exploration."

Schools, on the other hand, can't fail. We will close a school and throw problematic lives into further chaos. We will punish buildings, if that's what makes us feel better. "We" can't fail. There's no chance for a school (or its students) to try new things. When a student falls behind in reading or mathematics, everything else falls by the wayside in deference to the two most tested subjects.

That's unfortunate.

As of this writing, 71% of Texas school districts are failing. This, despite the "research-based" methods that Texas throws at districts. I thought we determined failure was not an option (unless you're the Gates Foundation). 

If the whole goal of a college major, a K-12 education, a lifetime, is to "not fail," well, you pretty much guarantee failure. You're going to miss the mark.

And the point.