The Failure Bow!

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” - Denis Waitley

This past week I decided to gather 5th grade students' current thoughts on failure. I asked each student to pick a color, a symbol, and an image that they feels represents failure. 

Check out the results from students in Mrs. Kalix's 5th grade class:

How do we change students’ negative associations with the word “failure” and help them learn to embrace, learn from, and persevere through failures?

 One of many ways that we will be using in art this year is...

 THE FAILURE BOW!

Students spent 15 minutes coming up with an imaginary failure, such as making a PB&J using hair gel instead of jelly, and drawing an artwork of their failure.

 Students then took turns presenting their epic failure to the class. The class then responded to each presented failure with a celebratory cheer. The presenter then did an elaborate bow in response to the cheering audience.

The failure bow helps students create a new relationship with what we think of as failure. When we fail, it often means we were pushing ourselves to take risks and develop new skills. Our so-called failures can lead us to possibilities we never would have imagined.

That is worth celebrating!

What's next?

5th grade's next project will focus on failures and building new relationships with what we think of as a failure.

Stay tuned to see the students' colors, symbols, and images that they choose to represent failure after their project is finished!