By Ms. Hobson.

Failing forward! This idea of being positive about failing was first presented to us by our principal, Mr Doug Prescott, at our professional development sessions given to us a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have thought much about this concept. Here are a few thoughts as to what this phrase means to me. Have no regrets – life is too short to live with regret. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy that when we have passed away our best ideas die with us because we were too afraid to try something – too scared to fail! Fail forward means take a risk but be aware that every risk could come with failure but without a great risk there is no reward. When one tries something new and it doesn’t work, so often we give up but that won’t help us to move forward. We have to learn to adapt, make changes and try and try again. There is always a lesson to be had and failure is one of our greatest teachers. The more one fails the less fear it holds for you and you usually come out on the other side of failure stronger and better equipped to face the challenge again until success is achieved! 

Here are some well-known examples of famous people who achieved success through failure (Independent, 2017).

• Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because his editor felt he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Several more of his businesses failed before the premiere of his movie Snow White. He went onto become the man who redefined all of our childhoods.

• Colonel Harland David Sanders was fired from dozens of jobs before founding a fried chicken empire. He travelled across the US looking for someone to sell his fried chicken, and after finally getting a business deal in Utah, Kentucky Fried Chicken was born. KFC is now one of the most recognisable franchises in the world, with over 18,000 locations.

• Sir Isaac Newton’s mother pulled him out of school as a boy so he could run the family farm because he was failing. Newton went on to become one of the greatest scientists of all time, revolutionising physics and mathematics.

• Thomas Edison’s teachers told him he was “too stupid to learn anything.”​ Edison went on to hold more than 1,000 patents and invented some world-changing devices, like the phonograph, electrical lamp, and a movie camera.

• J.K. Rowling was a single mom living off welfare when she began writing the first Harry Potter novel. She is now internationally renowned for her seven-book Harry Potter series and became the first billionaire author in 2004.

The list is endless – imagine if these people gave up. They didn’t – they chose to FAIL FORWARD and as a result many of them changed the world we live in.

As teachers and parents, we often find it difficult to allow our children to fail. We want to protect them – we want to make life easy for them. However, by so doing we often inhibit their development and their learning. Many years ago, I came across this story of the butterfly and realise that there is purpose in their perceived failing, there is purpose in their struggling. This is the story that changed my perspective on struggles and perceived failures:

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. The next day a small opening appeared. He watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Until it suddenly stopped making any progress, and looked like it was stuck. So he decided to help the butterfly. He took scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then came out easily, although it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. The man thought he had done a wonderful thing in helping the butterfly and sat there waiting for the wings to move and support the butterfly. But that didn’t happen. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly, crawling around with tiny wings and a swollen body. Despite the kind heart of the man, he didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle needed by the butterfly to get itself through the small opening were the way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings to prepare itself for flying once it was out of the cocoon. Moral of the story: Our struggles in life develop our strengths. Without struggles we never grow and never get stronger.

Who knows – if we allow our children to struggle and to learn to FAIL FORWARD – we might have the next JK Rowling, Walt Disney or Thomas Edison in our midst.

Ms. Hobson.

References

Independent (2017) 29 Famous eople who failed before they succeeded. Available at: 

https://bit.ly/3lpXpOv (Accessed: 10/11/2020)

YouTube video (2020) The Butterfly ( Struggles ) inspirational video. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7lziPqBEbw&t=28s (Accessed: 12/11/2020)