PenDragon - the official magazine of Lyford Cay International School PenDragon Vol 1, Spring 2015 | Page 14

a bad experience. Sports have been broken into a science,
and we can use advanced technology to pinpoint faults
in the swing of a club or monitor and improve training
outputs. Children practice test questions online for
months before engaging in a high-stakes test.  
By Dr. Joanna Paul, Director of Development
When was the last time you failed?  Or perhaps
a better question is: when was the last time that
you set out to complete a task knowing that
there was a significant chance that you would
fail?  For most of us, we are failing less these
days than we did 20 or even 10 years ago.
One of the most defining traits of our post-modern lives
is our ability to use our access to information and
resources to create a sense of preparation and ease in
our lives.  Gone are the days when we would call a friend
for directions to their house or try and find it on our own
with a couple of wrong turns.  Today, we use devices that
track our exact location, tell us where to turn and even
where the nearest coffee shop is.  When we travel, we
can search the latest user reviews of restaurants, even
seeing menus ahead of time so that we don’t end up with
Everyday we use technology to help us plan, problem
solve, mitigate risk, and increase our chances of success
in whatever endeavors we choose to pursue.
Success & Failure in Academia
There is, however, a growing camp of educators,
researchers and parents that think the best success
often comes through failure.  In fact, many intentionally
provide the children in their care with opportunities to
fail in order to build resilience and grit.  They argue that
we miss the valuable lessons that come from falling and
getting up again in our quests for mastery.  Many even
assert that our ability to adjust, adapt and innovate is
what makes us uniquely human.  
Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck, explains
that these opportunities create growth mindsets in
children, allowing them to face the innumerable
challenges of life with the ability to persevere, reflect
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