Looking forward to failure

Anyone else live and work in a community where students aren't allowed to fail? I live in a place like that. During today's session on diversity, I nodded aggressively (and probably moaned gently...a little) when a fellow adviser talked about having a staff filled with AP kids who could only seem to write stories about the stress of the honors students' work load. That's my staff, too. And my kids' bedrooms are littered with trophies and medals for participating.

When I took over my publication, there was a policy in place that students had to take an honors sophomore J1 class to get onto the newspaper staff. I lifted that rule for the sake of getting more student voices in the room. Did the writing quality go down because of that? Hell yes, it did. Which is partly why I'm here this week. I used to be able to let the top kids in the school do their thing. Now, I've got to regroup and be more actively involved. I have to teach more. I have to hold more hands.

I was reminded today that failure is not only a great teacher, but a great equalizer.

In my school, when smart kids get a B, they call it an "Asian fail," in reference to the expectations of high academic achievement often associated with cultures from throughout Asia, all among our largest minority populations.

Maybe a B on a paper feels like a failure to certain kids, but rising to the standard we require for our publication is a struggle for others. I want every student to have at least one moment when he or she has to ask: "how do I go about doing this?" I've already started thinking about how I will revise my first unit in the fall to put kids in a high-pressure situation (like our timed writing assignment on Monday) and then support them through dealing with that pressure. Maybe that sounds mean, but it's school, where failure SHOULD happen! It's not like this...

A blurry photo is a failure. A misspelled name is a failure. If you move the microphone too much, you will fail at capturing decent audio.

I think the beauty of student-run media is that it's easier for students to own their mistakes as well as their successes. "Journalism is a thousand painful lessons learned," Steve Elliott said this morning. That quick little quip has been ringing in my ears ever since.

How are you going to help your students fail this year? How are you going to help them through that failure? The mental health of students is a huge concern of mine; I find them to be less and less resilient. Maybe journalism is a way to help...

Keith Carlson
Naperville Central High School
Naperville, Ill.