What does failing mean to you as a teacher?

Failing

My definition of failing would be when the kids (Holt, pp.1) fail to develop more than a tiny part of the capacity for learning, understanding, and creating. This is what they were born and of which they made full use during, the first two or three years of their lives. I believe the main reason is their fear of (Holt, pp.1) failing, of displeasing the many adults around them, whose expectations keep them always anxious! Hence in my opinion, adults in families and schools cause kids to fail. Especially (Madda, 2018 the way schools are constructed. For adults use the word ‘fail’ as a stamp and not as a step on the way to learning something. What if we change the connotation of failure?

 

An Effective Teacher

 An effective teacher would see his/her work as that of a gardener setting up the eco system in which all children in the class can thrive. The teacher would have a meaning of success different child, enabling personalized learning in the class. The teachers and schools (Holt, pp.4) would not blame the children for anything but would take the responsibility on themselves. And they would be fluid or nimble and be quick to drop something if it did not work. They flunked unsuccessful methods, not the children.

 

Differentiation

 As per Jean Piaget (Seifert & Sutton, 2009, pp.45). Children go through the stages of physical, emotional and then cognitive development across the ages. So the meaning of failure perhaps would be associated with the stages described. Early childhood would need a space for physical exploration, middle childhood for physical and emotional and adolescence for emotional and cognitive.

But it would be same at each stage in the sense that the teacher would need to believe that the child is not failing, the eco system is. 

And would be ready to adapt, accommodate and adjust.