Celebrate Failure — Teach kids to fail
Our education system teaches us not to fail, but we need to celebrate failure, says Michel Visser. Education should teach us all to fall flat on our faces.
Over the past few years there have been many changes within our educational system. These have mostly been about the possibilities of new and innovative technologies within education. At the same time there has also been a lot of attention concerning the threat technology poses to the job market — which jobs will still exist in ten years after “the robotification”?
In order to reduce costs, politicians today are trying to cut down on budget instead of making decisions based on substantive motivations. This is not to say that the educational sector cannot benefit from modernisation. With a new, slightly tweaked, approach we can give our students a better start in the job market. An often heard complaint from employers is that those just entering jobs are not well prepared and ready for working life. School curriculums are not connecting to the day to day reality of work, as they used to. Instead of going against the grain, modernisation offers an opportunity for education to develop within the existing framework.
The solution will not come from Ipads and sophisticated apps, nor from robots. The solution lies within us, as humans. We are in the midst of an exciting time. Our education system is reinventing itself atop the foundations of an outdated and linear model, one that was founded during the industrialization period. From primary school to secondary, high school to university, it’s as if we are parts in a production line. A delivery system injecting us directly injected into the job market. This linear system strives for high scores and the fastest career trajectories. The reality is that most people won’t flourish in such a system. Most brilliant minds prosper despite, not due to, their education.
Myself, I was trained as an actor at the ArtEZ academy of arts, and today I am founder of Konnektid.com. During my time at the theater academy I learnt to seek my own boundaries (not ones defined by my school). I was taught to make mistakes. Unfortunately after some time removed from ArtEZ I had to relearn how to make mistakes and to fall flat on my face again and again. It may sound counterintuitive, but this attitude — and having the courage fulfill it — has given me the flexibility and innovative mindset I need as the founder of an internet startup. It is a skill one cannot learn in any books.
We as a society have been through so many changes over the last few years. We have endured the housing bubble (and it’s burst) and a major financial crisis. But at the same time we have also witnessed a rapid growth in flexible — and incredibly innovative — work. We have gotten a glimpse into a future where access is more important than ownership. In part due to the sharing economy experiences, reputation and knowledge have become more important than owning a car, a house or a fixed contract. The job market is not just about consolidation anymore, but about flexibility — to be able to constantly educate and develop yourself. Is it still realistic to educate people over years for one job position? Or do we need to give them the right tools to be able to develop themselves and participate in a flexible job market?
So let kids stumble, bumble and compromise. Next to English and maths, the skill of failure is just as important, and we need to teach our kids that too. Let’s shift the attention from high marks and top results to the kid himself. Make more space for experiments and play. We can all do reasonably well at school, but what do we really learn about our own talents? Only a mentality where we allow ourselves to make mistakes will give us the opportunity to explore our boundaries, to innovate and ultimately grow. That’s why we need to start rewarding failure from the very beginning.
Failure is the best recipe for success.
Michel Visser — Founder www.konnektid.com & co-founder of ShareNL
