Rethinking Failure

Story by Emily Magnus, Illustration by Anastasia Poliakova

What does it take to recover from a mistake? Is it possible to practice perseverance in order to prepare for adversity? Can failure be good? At Cardigan, boys are gifted with the time to process their mistakes and are given the tools to problem-solve when failures become roadblocks. Some boys even begin to look for the silver lining when plans go awry.

For an angler, failure is the fish that got away. For a soccer player, it’s the ball that sails just above the crossbar in the final seconds of a game when the score is tied. For an actor, it’s the silence following a forgotten line, the seconds feeling like hours. And for students, it’s the marks of a red pen scrawled on a consequential test, topped off with “SEE ME” written in the margins.

In the human body, failure has physical manifestations. The heart pounds, palms sweat, knees go weak. Your breath catches and your vision narrows, the mind short-circuits and your throat constricts. Cortisol floods the brain; fight-or-flight responses follow.

Most would agree that failure is uncomfortable, and in most situations, humans tend to avoid it, making choices that sometimes even result in self-sabotage and further downward spirals. Failure, most would agree, is bad and should be dodged, ducked, and sidestepped, at all costs.

The reality, however, is that failure is good. If we can move beyond the visceral immediate reactions, failure can be an incredibly valuable teacher. It can be a launching pad that leads to creative and complex solutions. It helps develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and it can help build resiliency and empathy. Failure, when approached with a growth mindset, can unlock significant leaps in learning and personal growth.

Embracing Productive Failure

Many traditional teaching methods involve direct instruction: teachers take students through the information they want them to understand step by step. The “right” answer is emphasized and the path to get there is prescriptive. And at the end of a unit, students take tests in which they are given credit for correct answers; there are no redos.

And while direct instruction keeps learning efficient and straightforward, it also makes education transactional—I have this amount of time to get the right answer—rather than nurturing lifelong passion—I want to understand how this works. In contrast, in a lesson that includes productive failure, also sometimes called generative learning, students are given time to figure out answers on their own, using their prior knowledge to develop possible solutions. Only after students have struggled with the new information, turning it over and looking at it from different angles, will a teacher help students bridge the gap between their prior knowledge and their new knowledge, guiding them in assembling everything accurately.
 

Kids see failure as a judgement on their character and their ability. We talk a lot about normalizing failure and making it part of the process of becoming their best self. Shannon Gahagan, Ninth-Grade PEAKS Coach

At Cardigan, the Gates Program is the most obvious example of productive failure—challenging students to find their own solutions to everyday problems, producing iterative prototypes, and working directly with consumers to refine their inventions. Students build cars and race them against each other to learn about aerodynamics; they build robots and compete against teams all over New England to understand how to build and program resilient and efficient bots; and they write business plans to understand all aspects of being an entrepreneur and how to persevere in the face of failure.

But Gates isn’t Cardigan’s only academic program in which students grapple with productive failure. In Biology, when Science Department Chair Meredith Frost P’25 first teaches students to write lab reports, students often rewrite them.

“Failure is a learning point,” says Ms. Frost. “I tell students all the time that the cool thing about being a scientist is that when they discover something, scientists go to their rivals and ask them to read their research and try to poke holes in it, or maybe a fellow scientist will replicate a colleague’s study and make it better. Failure gives them information for their next attempt. When a lab doesn’t go well in my classroom, I ask students to write about the variables they need to control. I ask them to think about why their results are wrong and what they could do differently the next time around.”

Productive failure can also be as simple as letting students correct tests, giving them the opportunity to become aware of what it is they don’t know, and then filling in that gap. English teacher Alex Gray H’13, P’14,’16 uses what he calls an autopsy report when students receive poor grades. If students earn test or quiz grades below 65%, he requires them to do a three-part autopsy: 1. Write the correct answers to any questions they got wrong; 2. Explain why they got the questions wrong; 3. Explain what they will do next time to get the correct answers.

“In English, I usually see the need for two types of corrections,” says Mr. Gray. “First, something went wrong in the preparation phase, and that’s where an autopsy is helpful. Second, is in writing. This is never done, and I tell students they can always redo their writing and make it better.”
 

I don’t know that any of us gets through a day without failure. It’s our responsibility to teach students to be okay with it and recognize that failure doesn’t have to define them. Meredith Frost P’25, Science Department Chair and Director of Community Life

Why is productive failure so important? In addition to ensuring students learn the correct information and along the way develop problem-solving and analytical skills, research has shown that learning that takes place in this way is more durable. In Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, the authors explain, “One explanation for this effect is the idea that as you cast about for a solution, retrieving related knowledge from memory, you strengthen the route to a gap in your learning even before the answer is provided to fill it and, when you do fill it, connections are made to the related material that is fresh in your mind from the effort” (pg 88).

Want to get better at solving analogies on the SSATs? Mr. Gray doesn’t tell his students any tricks; instead, he dives right in without any instruction. “The students struggle at first, but inevitably there are students who are good at solving them, and I’ll ask them to explain to the rest of the class what it is they are doing,” he says. “The rest of the boys catch on and then they all have the tools. They learn by doing.” The failures the students might have experienced at first provide depth and breadth to their understanding, providing plenty of connections to make the strategies more enduring.

PEAKS: An Umbrella and a Net

It’s important to note that productive failure only works if it takes place in a safe environment. Manu Kapur, author of Productive Failure: Unlocking Deeper Learning Through the Science of Failing, explains in an interview with Edutopia,

We don’t want students to flounder. Failure helps in building awareness and learning affect—the desire to learn—but in and of itself, it cannot get you to assemble knowledge, which is the process of integrating new information with the activated prior knowledge. A teacher or expert is needed at that point to explain the problem and solution.

The goal is to design experiences that incorporate failure in a safe, curated way. Then, we turn that initial failure into something that is productive by stepping in, giving students feedback and guidance, and helping them to make sense of the material by assembling it into a more coherent whole.

At Cardigan, this is where PEAKS® (Personalized Education for the Acquisition of Knowledge and Skills) comes in. Students in all grades are enrolled in PEAKS and practice skills they will need for their core academic subjects. Students learn how to write citations in PEAKS before using them in history research papers; they learn how to study for tests before they take their first graded evaluations in science; they learn how to use a plan book and practice advocating for themselves prior to meeting with their teachers. And, they talk about how to handle failure.

“Kids see failure as a judgment on their character and their ability,” says ninth-grade PEAKS coach Shannon Gahagan. “We talk a lot about normalizing failure and making it a part of the process of becoming their best self. I encourage them to take it in as information and feedback that they can use as a stepstone to get from A to B.”

PEAKS coach Cheryl Borek P’10,’12,’15 adds, “I think of PEAKS as an umbrella over and a net under every student”—an umbrella to protect them from failure while they learn the skills they need to be successful, a net to catch them when inevitably they fail.

The umbrella for students comes in the form of PEAKS assignments that do not receive achievement grades, keeping the stakes low. Instead of focusing on their grades, students can focus on what is important, mastering skills and processing information.

“When we took away achievement grades, it shifted the conversations from ‘What did you do wrong,’ to ‘How hard did you try?’” says Ms. Borek. “We use rubrics to help them reflect on their work and help them fix anything they didn’t understand. We find ways to give meaningful feedback and consequences that are not punitive.”

It’s an approach that helps develop a growth mindset, a term popularized by author Carol Dweck. In Make It Stick, the authors explain:

Dweck’s research had been triggered by her curiosity over why some people become helpless when they encounter challenges and fail at them, whereas others respond to failure by trying new strategies and redoubling their efforts. She found that the fundamental difference between the two responses lies in how a person attributes failure: those who attribute failure to their own inability—‘I’m not intelligent’— become helpless. Those who interpret failure as the result of insufficient effort or an ineffective strategy dig deeper and try different approaches. (pg 180)

Rather than placing the blame on themselves for failures, students are taught to understand how to use failure to their benefit.

“It’s no accident that growth mindset is also one of Cardigan’s Habits of Learning,” says Assistant Dean of Academics and PEAKS Department Chair Jarrod Caprow. “We want students to engage in the learning process and not focus on the outcome.”

PEAKS also provides time; it’s the net that helps students recover from mistakes. During PEAKS appointments in the evenings and on weekends, students take the time to catch up on missed assignments, correct incomplete work, and get help on lessons they didn’t understand the first time around. It’s also the time set aside every day—during study halls and advisor meetings—to develop healthy and effective habits that will stay with them long after they graduate from Cardigan.

For students who arrive in sixth grade, they get plenty of time to practice with the umbrella and net firmly in place, protecting them as they learn and grow. By the ninth-grade year, however, Ms. Gahagan says PEAKS coaches take a step back. “We let the students take the lead and take care of their failures on their own,” she says. “It’s sometimes hard to let it happen, but we want them to feel ready to make it on their own at their next school. It has everything to do with confidence; if they feel they can do it, they can move on.”

If PEAKS gets it right, ninth graders can’t wait to graduate.

Overriding the Amygdala

And if educating middle school boys was just about academics, then we could end our feature here. But at Cardigan, our mission is not just to prepare students for secondary school but also for “responsible and meaningful lives in a global society.” PEAKS and their academic classes will give them the tools and the perseverance to face failure in academics, but what about in their personal lives? How can Cardigan help boys learn and grow from personal failures and develop resiliency?

“I don’t know that any of us gets through a day without failure,” reflects Ms. Frost, who is also the director of community life. “It’s our responsibility to teach students to be okay with it and recognize that failure doesn’t have to define them.” Handling conflicts with their roommates, navigating emotional discussions when they feel they have been misunderstood, and overcoming disappointments and losses are a priority. And when conflicts and failures inevitably do happen, students need to remain present and seek resolution.

Ms. Frost says the first step is to be proactive in creating a community in which the boys know and are invested in one another. “Technology and social media give teenagers anonymity and allow them to say things to each other online they wouldn’t say to each other face-to-face,” she says. “In a successful community, that can’t happen; students and faculty have to know each other and be invested in each other ahead of time so that when failures happen, they want to take the time to repair and rebuild.” From day one every September, building community—connecting the boys to one another in positive, healthy relationships—takes precedence.

Ms. Frost also acknowledges the importance of giving students the time to process their failures. “Teenagers need to have a moment and know that they have been heard,” she explains. “But then we as adults need to help them move beyond failure and help them recognize their choices and what is in their control. I always tell them, ‘You are entitled to feel your feelings, but that is finite; don’t get stuck.’”

But not getting stuck isn’t always easy. One factor involves emotional bookmarks, those feelings that override our rational brain and lead to what at first may appear to be illogical actions. Mr. Gray and English Department Chair Chris Kenny read Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales with their students, a book that, among other things, helps students understand why it is sometimes hard to move on from failure. As the title implies, the book examines stories of survival and why some people overcome while others perish. Gonzales explains,

"Perceptions from the world around us (sight, for example) reach the thalamus first…From there, the signals travel by way of axons from the visual thalamus to the middle layer of the neocortex and from there are sent out to the other five layers for processing. What emerges is a perception of sight. But before all that can be completed, a rough form of the same sensory information reaches the amygdala by a faster pathway. The amygdala screens that information for signs of danger. (pg 65)

The amygdala’s reaction to incoming information is based on instinct and memories from previous experiences. In other words, rational thoughts lag behind the emotional responses. In nature, seeing a bear makes you run even before your rational brain can process how far away the bear might be or how aggressive it is. And in a dorm situation, a student might react quickly and decisively to a roommate with whom he has been in conflict previously, allowing his emotions to override his rational thoughts.

Faculty then become role models and guides to students, helping them overcome emotional bookmarks that might result in negative habits and poor decisions. Teachers encourage students to lift their heads and develop an awareness of the links between their feelings and their actions, heading off failures in their relationships even before they occur. Students learn to see the impact of their actions and the choices they have in how they treat others. It again requires time, time to process what students are feeling and what others might be feeling.

Lastly, Ms. Frost also thinks it has something to do with joy. “Kids think that the dopamine hit they get from technology is joy,” says Ms. Frost. “But real joy—that comes from healthy friendships and showing kindness to others—that’s what lets you overcome failure.”

Chronos vs. Kairos

Chronos is the Greek word associated with chronological time—directional, sequential, progressive; it’s the time we spend checking off boxes and completing lists. The term “hurry sickness” was coined to describe this state of always looking to the next thing. Failure in Chronos time is frustrating and limiting because it delays the completion of everything on our “to do” list. Failure is a roadblock.

Kairos, however, focuses on the present—what’s important right now—taking the time to work through things that are in front of us. It is time that sidesteps the ordinary business of life. It allows one to be curious, unhurried, capable of directing attention to whatever is happening in the present moment. Failure still happens, but its lessons become the focus, providing growth and knowledge. Failure in Kairos becomes a teacher and opens doors to new possibilities.

At Cardigan, students learn the value of both Chronos and Kairos. Chronos teaches students to get to class on time, meet academic deadlines, and set goals for their athletic development. They learn to clean their rooms and wear a belt. But in Kairos, in time outside of time, students learn to be curious and embrace failure, knowing that it isn’t an endpoint or final judgment. They learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and appreciate that failure can be positive with a bit of perseverance and resilience. The fish that got away becomes a learning opportunity for the next cast, and the notations at the top of a test become an invitation to learn. Chronos and Kairos. Failure and success. 

This article was originally published in the summer 2025 issue of the Cardigan Chronicle