Guideline 4: Celebrate Successes and Forgive Failures

This is the fifth post in a series titled, “What Can I Do About Bullies?”

Guideline 4: Celebrate Successes and Forgive Failures

The year is 1996. I am sitting in 6th grade Math, the class I have been struggling in throughout the year. I just can’t comprehend the content, no matter how hard I try. My teacher conducts class in the typical lecture/quiz style on a daily basis. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that she will call on me every day for an answer I don’t know that cripples me. Perhaps it’s the total embarrassment I know I will face when my name gets called, and I get the answer wrong. I just wish I could be more like Jenna — she always has the right answer.

Because I really am a good student and have a good work ethic, I study my math textbook every night for hours. I read and reread lessons, I practice the problems over and over again, but I never seem to grasp the content. I have A’s in all my other classes, but I can’t earn higher than a C in this class. I study hard, only to fail the tests. I hate seeing the F scrawled across my test in thick red ink.

I will struggle with math the rest of my academic career. I will shy away from activites that require any sort of computation. I will break out in cold sweats every time I sit in class and hear my name called. I suffer the same as many of my peers around me, but I feel so isolated that I won’t realize this until I actually begin teaching students and see myself in them.

Perhaps your story is similar to mine. Have you ever failed in front of your peers? If you have, I know it wasn’t a fun experience for you. It may have scarred you much like it scarred me. Even if you’ve never faced failure and the embarrassment and ridicule that proceeds it, I know you would never want any of your students to experience it.

The worst kind of bullying I see on a day-to-day basis is the teasing that follows a wrong answer or a failure. Middle School is a crash course in survival, and the best way children learn to survive is to put others down. Think about it: as screwed up as you think you are, isn’t it nice to believe there’s someone else who’s even more screwed up? Kids will go to great lengths to beat others down. As teachers, we should create enviornments that feel so safe children don’t feel the need to fight for survival.

I know that last statement sounded pretty new-agey and a little, “Let’s all hold hands and love each other,” and I assure you I’m not usually like that. But there comes a time, I believe, when a little bit of feel-good is necessary.  In education, healthy competition is a good thing, but mean-spirited bullying is not.

Joel had posted the video below a while back about a new classroom management technique. It was met with responses of criticism and interest (as any new technique would be), and I will not share my opinions of the technique as a whole. But I do want to discuss one aspect that I think is extremely vaulable in the classroom: celebrating success and forgiving failures. Here’s the video:

In the video, you’ll see the professor call on a student in class and ask him a question. When the student answers correctly, the class celebrates with a “10 finger woo.” The 10 finger woo is a silly one second party, but it allows the students to celebrate the student’s right answer. Later in the video, the professor calls on a student, and she does not get the answer right. Instead of criticizing her, the class, in unison, says, “It’s cool,” and continues on with the class. There’s no embarrassment and no time for others to make fun of the student.

You may think the 10 finger woo and the “It’s cool” are too silly to use in the classroom, and that’s fine. But I encourage you to find a technique you are comfortable with to celebrate student successes and forgive student failures.  Creating a classroom enviornment where students feel safe to learn and contribute is a skill good teachers possess. When students become a community within the walls of your classroom, you’ll witness  teamwork like never before. Learning is a process, not a destination, and when we focus on giving the right answer more than working towards understanding, we do our students a disservice. Students don’t fail when they provide wrong answers; students fail when they chose to quit trying. That is a lesson we need to teach those bullies who are just waiting to jump on the kid with the incorrect answer.