The Agony (and Ecstasy) of Defeat

Get ready NOLA, here we come!

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Please come see us at session 1923 on Sunday.  

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If you have a kid enrolled in an extracurricular activity, have attended an awards ceremony for anyone under the age of 16, or have simply driven by a soccer field, you are probably familiar with the EGAT philosophy: Everybody Gets a Trophy.

Somewhere along the way, building a child's self esteem became more important than building resilience.  We learned that kids feel better about themselves when they are successful, and that somehow turned into "We must create successes for our students."

Although research has clarified the difference between the sense of satisfaction created for being awarded a trophy for showing up and one earned via true effort, that distinction hasn't really permeated the world of education.  Not yet.  Teachers still scramble to make sure kids feel success.  

Please don't think we're judging.  We do it in our classrooms, too.  It's hard to implement strategies that reflect a philosophy that kids learn more from failure than they do from success.  Maybe it's because failure has to be done in the "right" way - in a safe environment where students have multiple opportunities to show what they know and there isn't the pressure of a low grade ending up on a report card - something difficult to do in this world of high-stakes testing and an ever-increasing list of curricular demands.  But we digress.  



"I hope I win!"

This post is all about failure.  At a recent after school DIVERGENT activity, students were allowed to spend an hour playing whatever carnival game their heart desired (and an express order from Oriental Trader could provide).   Kids played for tickets to earn points for their faction.  You'd think they'll all go for the easy games, right?  Or gravitate toward the games they were good at.  Well, you'll likely be as surprised as we were.

Maybe WE are getting comfy in our blingy CRL shirts, seeing the light at the end of our Third Year tunnel (we may be tossing around book titles...) but thankfully, our students still have surprises left to reveal.

And we have a lot to learn from them.

Since Mary has the honor of having an All In! initiate under her roof, she had the inside scoop on how the kids enjoyed themselves at the carnival.

"Omigosh mom, that food can thing? That was my favorite. My friend and I were so horrible. We had to keep going until we knocked at least one down!"

Waiting in line to lose

At first, it was nothing more than a cute conversation the CRL shared the next morning. "What a cool kid - she liked the challenge!"

We thought that was it; thankfully, there's always more to the story.

After our Faction Initiation carnival, a student stopped Mary in the hall, telling us how much fun he had. Out of curiosity Mary asked, "What was your favorite part?" to which the Candor 6th grader replied, "Oh, the egg balancing thing! That was awesome!"

After this encounter, a puzzled Mary approached Erin's classroom and said, "You know the Candor boy you were with on Friday? The one you said couldn't balance an egg on his head to save his life? Apparently, that was his favorite activity."

Really? How could that be?  He was horrible at balancing that darn thing on his head.  He lost. A lot.

Lessons learned from our initiates

Sure enough, when we talked to Katie (who had manned Dauntless' Exploding Muffins) she told us about one Dauntless girl who never left the line. "She kept waiting her turn to go again. She really wanted to explode all three muffins.  She was awful; but man she was determined."

Now, we know 3 kids out of 100+ isn't much of a sample size, but still.  If three kids spent their time trying to master something they found challenging, we're willing to bet that others did, too.  It intrigued us so much that Mary posed a few questions to her 8th grade ELA classes the next day.  

Why are kids willing to battle frustration for an hour while trying to balance something on their head but they give up a the first sign of confusion with a homework assignment?  Why are kids willing to take risks on the sports fields but choose the easiest option when presented with school projects?  

The overwhelming response: fear.  

They fear failure.  They fear disappointing their teachers and parents.  They fear the low grade they could receive if they choose the harder option.  They fear the feeling in their stomach when they see the F on the paper.  They fear messing up when it counts.


All lined up and ready to fail
 for the fun of it!

Mary's brain was swimming with trying to figure out the implications of all that her students were saying, so she didn't press for more detail.  Instead, her addled brain managed to find one more question. 

What makes a challenge fun?  

Again, the response was clear.  Challenges are fun when they don't count.  Students will try anything as long as they know they won't lose credit or points or face.  If they aren't worried about being made fun of or criticized or getting an "F," they're willing and able to give it a shot.  

We're sure this isn't a groundbreaking observation; there are likely fifteen books written on the subject.  But somehow, when the issue comes off the page and becomes the flesh and blood kid standing in front of you with a grin on his bespectacled face, laughing at how he couldn't keep a wooden egg on his curly head, it becomes a whole lot more real.  

Here's our take.  When presented with a challenge, kids ask themselves "What if...?"  This is good.  We want them to consider potential outcomes for their actions!  The problem is their brains have negative answers at the ready, and what positive answers they can generate they do not trust.   So when they ask, "What if I get something wrong?", their brain replies with "Then you lose points" rather than "Then you'll get a chance to figure out what went wrong and try again."  When they ask, "What if I don't do well?"  They answer themselves with "Then you fail" instead of trusting that they'll have a chance to try again.  


Vinko Bogataj, aka: The Agony of Defeat Guy

Why did our DIVERGENT initiates spend all their time at one station, trying again and again and again?  There are a multitude of factors at work.  One reason would be because of the teachers at each station saying, "That's okay!  You're getting better!  Try again!"  No one said they'd used up all their tries.  No one told them they had to move on to another unit.  Another reason would be because it didn't count.  Sure they were playing for tickets, but there was no report card grade attached to their success or failure at using a beanbag to knock over a pile of cans.  They were playing for something greater than tickets; they were playing for pride and the sense of accomplishment that comes with improvement.  

We share this story more to share inspiration than anything else.  Our takeaway:  under the right circumstances, students don't mind struggle.  In fact, they enjoy it. Your classroom can be fun *and* challenging, the two are not mutually exclusive.  What are those perfect circumstances? Well, we wish we could wrap up this post with a cure-all suggestion for making your classroom a place where students try, try, try until they can pump their fist and say, "Yes!" when they experience success.  The truth is, though, that while we have more insight than we once did, we're still lacking in the strategies department. 

This is where you come in.  If you have strategies for creating an environment where students embrace challenge rather than avoid it, please share them in the comments section.  Thanks!