I Should Have Let My Son Fail Sooner and He Agrees

I Should Have Let My Son Fail Sooner and He Agrees

“The one thing I wish my mom had done was let me fail.” Hearing those words from my son, a high school senior, was very jarring. He told me about a conversation with a friend’s moms. His friend’s younger brother was struggling with many of the same things my son had struggled with in early high school – mental health, connecting socially, performing below his academic capacity and being combative at home. (I was afraid to let my son fail. Shutt…

Embracing Productive Failure: Why Getting it Wrong First Might Be the Right Approach

A counterintuitive learning strategy that’s changing how we think about instruction Here’s a wild idea: What if we told learners to dive into complex problems before we taught them how to solve them? What if we let them struggle, make mistakes, and yes—even fail—before stepping in with our carefully crafted lessons? If that sounds backwards to you, you’re not alone. But according to researcher Manu Kapur, this approach might be exactly what our …