Jessica Riddell is an award-winning teacher at Bishop's University, Executive Director of the Maple League of Universities and project leader for their WINCan partnership. In this edition of her University Affairs column, Jessica writes about the need to provide safe spaces for students to experience and learn from failure, while exploring the dangers of "normalizing failure without taking a hard look at the system within which it happens".
We loved her example from Smith College in the U.S.: in their year-long Failing Well program, students can earn a certificate of failure that states:
You are hereby authorized to screw up, bomb or fail at one or more relationships, hookups, friendships, texts, exams, extra-curriculars or any other choices associated with college herein, wherefore, and evermore … and still be a totally worthy, utterly excellent human.
Click on the following to read the full text https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/adventures-in-academe/the-danger-of-fetishizing-failure-in-the-academy/.