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Some Thoughts On Failure

Abhijit Kadle | Upside Learning | July 21, 2011 | 2 comments

I’ll admit it; I failed miserably at something this week. After having labored over a presentation, the elements of which I’ve been obsessing about and researching for more than a few days, I found I couldn’t tie them together into a cohesive vision. Without a vision, there was nothing to articulate in the presentation. Result? – failure; and in a way that I found disappointing after spending so much time thinking of ways to tie the elements together, coming up with a theme, and a presentation style. After the apologetic emails explaining the situation, I paused to ask, why am I viewing failure in this way. Answering my own question, some thoughts did occur to me:

Societal expectations – I feel the key fear of failure is set up early in childhood by society, and indirectly by parents. Society views failure negatively, and is set up only to reward success. This is very unlike how we learn, which includes repeated failure at many levels and when attempting any sort of activity.
Educational system – just like the society it is part of, our educational systems – schools and colleges is another area where we are taught that failure is not acceptable. In most cases, rather than constructive and remedial feedback being offered, failure is quite literally punished. Individuals who fail are tagged as being ‘losers’, ‘non-performers’, ‘stupid’ etc. Isn’t it strange that a system designed to assist learning cannot account for the simple fact that failure plays an important role in human learning?
Trial and Error – learning always involves significant trial and error; when viewed from that perspective, failure is just a natural progression towards building a more complete understanding of the task/activity. Each successive failure only exposes strategies that have not worked for the individual, helping him/her avoid the same pitfalls again. This is exactly the sort of environment simulations provide, we should start looking at them as platforms for constructive failure.
Contrast with games/play – anyone who has played games will be quite clear that failure or rather repeated failure is a part and parcel of game-play. No one expects to master a game at the first go, gamers accept that they’ll be failing several times before any sort of mastery.

Tags: Thoughts On Failure

About The Author

Abhijit Kadle

AVP - Learning Design

The 'Google' of Upside Learning, as he is fondly called, Abhijit plays a key role in guiding the Instructional Designers and is a chief member of the Innovation team. With over 15 years of professional experience in multimedia design and development, he has been active in the field of digital learning design for the past 12 years, and has worked on design driven projects for multimedia kiosk software, interactive CD–ROMs, multimedia instructional simulations, game-based learning environments, computer–based training, web–based training, and learning management systems and standards. He has managed multiple technical instructional design and development projects for various Fortune 500 companies at another eLearning company and also has presented learning sessions at various L&D events like mLearnCon, co-hosted webinars alongside leading industry experts, co-authored an eBook on Mobile Learning, and authored whitepapers on Mobile Learning and Game–based Learning. A Mechanical Engineer from the University of Pune, Abhijit is interested in multifarious subjects ranging from genetics, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, engineering, technology, computing to electronic games, media, communication, and the design of user experience and interaction.

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Comments ( 2 comments )

Amar Jadhav July 25, 2011 at 10:32 pm

Well said Abhijit. Agree with you.
Mute July 26, 2011 at 11:55 am

Dear blogger,

I liked the way you are cool with the fact of failing. But when stuff goes wrong again and again people get fed up… Its basically an interospection that would help one come out of the cocoon. We need to define what failure and success is….in school success is getting good marks…in college its good marks + extra curricular activities + an big gang of friends. When it comes to professional life….success is synonymous with promotions and increments and boss’ “nice words”. that is the belief system that many have….
Someone who is passionate to become successful goes and asks a feedback from his supervisor he gets feedback in such a way where he feels like abusing himself…. i have heard following phrases countless times: “Make me believe you are an istructional designer for 6 years…the client is not gonna agree….you are stupid enough to even think about talk with the client to change thier process…. thats not the standard….you dont need to be bothered about the learnability of the course…the client takes care of it………….and guess what…i really feel a sadistic pleasure when i get to just question the existing system….if not change it…when my voice falls in deaf ears…i still have hope that i changes some young fresh college grad in the team to think differently….

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