Failing to Fail

After reading a great blog post this morning entitled "The Wisdom to Learn From Failure" I quickly began to reflect on how the majority of educational systems are set up in a way where failure, or even the thought of it, is unacceptable.  Early on in both my teaching and administrative careers I often found myself trying to avoid failure at all costs.  I now see it in the eyes of non-tenured teachers during pre-conferences and observations.

The fact of the matter is that we (administrators, teachers, students) learn best by doing and inherit in this process no matter who you are is some sort of failure.  It is how we react and evolve when faced with this phenomenon that defines us as educators and learners.  If we are to support risk-taking behaviors in order to promote innovation then an environment has to be cultivated where we learn from our failures in order to grow and become better.  As educators we must not be afraid to fail and it is essential that this is modeled for our students.  Should failing to fail be promoted in schools today?  If so then change and reform will be extremely hard to come by.