That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. “If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. The following quote by Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, is true for teachers as much as parents: Learn a new technology tool-maybe one that they can teach you! Celebrate when you make something better! Take time to learn with your students. “Oh no!” Tell students how you feel when you make a mistake, and encourage them to help you find strategies to fix it. Try pretending to make a blunder in your lesson: spell something wrong, make an error in your calculation, or make an accidental mark across a drawing. We need to model how failing can help us overcome obstacles, but only when we view a mistake as an opportunity. Students must see teachers as vulnerable and active learners. Quotes and words such as “YET” decorated their shields, which serve as a visual and tactile reminder that they are not alone in facing their fears, and together they can grow. Then my brave students decided that they needed shields to protect them from their villains. Fail-Stop-Trying said they would never be able to do it. Madame Perfect told them that they weren’t good enough. What might a villain look like? Sound like? Move like? When challenged to design a villain, my students created Square Man, who only thinks inside the box, and Captain Failure, whose mission is to stop them from learning and creating.

Challenge them to name the mascot and make it a part of your class culture, events, and newsletters!Įvery hero needs a villain. Flearn holds a sign with a quote from the book Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg: “If you think you have made a mistake, think of it as an opportunity to make something beautiful.” Have your students choose their mascot.

A class mascot can represent your creative class culture and bring a positive vibe to your environment too! Adopt a mascot that your students will identify with as a constant reminder to keep their minds open! Our mascot is a wooden mannequin called Flearn (Fail + Learn = Flearn). Adopt a Class MascotĪ mascot is a symbol that an organization adopts to help communicate its character and positive traits. These tips include some options for in-person learning and some for virtual classes. In this post, I would like to share eight strategies to help students feel more confident in their creative abilities and view failures as opportunities to grow. Creating an environment where students are aware of their emotions and view failures as a step in the right direction didn’t happen overnight, and I had to make some adjustments this year. Teaching online this year has meant having to renew my focus on developing a classroom culture that encourages creativity. When students come from these systems, they often find it challenging to embrace uncertainty and mistakes. Many students come to my art class feeling that they want to “get it right.” Traditional school systems value success and grades. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a classroom culture that nurtures a creative mindset.

Connecting has been more challenging than ever. As a parent of teens and an elementary school educator, I can say that this year has been a stressful one for students.

Signs for art class beautiful oops