Everybody Fails, But Can You Fail Like a Pro? Freebie Included

"I'm good enough.  I'm smart enough.  And gosh-darn it--people like me."

Stuart Smalley was a good man.  He knew how to fail and overcome his sadness by working hard and facing facts.  Sadly, his time has passed and many students (and adults, teachers, professionals) don't know how fail properly.

I'm dealing with it every single day with my students.  For some, work is hard and they're afraid of messing up.  For other's they're afraid of hard work.  And then I've got a few that will never admit to a mistake they've made.

FAILURE is tough.  Failure is also natural, but for so many its' seen as the end.  Whereas it should truly be seen as the beginning.

I just put together the poster set How to Fail Like a Pro because I wanted my students to look at all the alternatives to quitting.  Here's what it looks like on my bulletin board.

You can grab a smaller freebie version here.

These are the three posters included below.

School is tough and we have tons of students that are tiny little perfectionists.  BUT they don't know (or have) the coping skills around when the chips are down.

I've found that I normally have to physically walk students through the process of not quitting, figuring out why they failed, and then making adjustments.

This year seems to be about the social/emotional learning and teaching for me.  More than any other year, I have kids that need to build these skills.  Sometimes though, these are my favorite lessons to teach because your building skills that can carryover for the rest of their lives.