Sharing Good Practice
HOW TO HANDLE MISTAKES IN
THE CLASSROOM
By Bettina Bennett
R
emember how much you
hated pop quizzes? You just
knew that the teacher was out
to get you. However, now that
you are the teacher who is giving pop
quizzes, you know that maybe back
then, he or she was trying to help. As
parents and teachers, we know our
kids need to sometimes fail in order to
learn. We know this because we also
learn by trial and error.
How could I be so silly? I should have
known better. I know how to do this.
These are all questions we ask ourselves
and statements we make when we make
mistakes. But mistakes do not have to
be as final as we often feel they are.
Our reactions to making mistakes will
determine how much we do or do not
learn from them. As teachers we teach
our students how to deal with mistakes
by the way we react to the mistakes they
make in our lessons.
“I know for me,” says Dawn Grogan, who
has taught for five years and has been
teaching Cycle One in the UAE for the
past month, “I learn better if I’m doing
versus being told. When I mess it up, I
look for what I did wrong and then fix it
or work hard on doing it better next time.”
Dawn adds that when her students get
something wrong, she asks them to
prove their answers. “Eventually they
realize they aren’t able to prove that
answer, so they search for how to get
it right. It’s more important for them to
learn or see how that process needs
to be, so that they learn the concept
versus just the right answer.”
Kendra Gray has taught for six years, three
of them as a Cycle 3 EMT. She notes that
peer editing is a great way for students to
see where they’ve gone wrong.
“It’s a lot easier for them to see when
a peer has made a mistake than when
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Nov - Dec 2014
checking their own work, which then
causes them to realize that they may
have made the same mistake.”
Another plus to peer editing, she says,
is that it helps her students to build
confidence in telling each other how to
improve. This ultimately helps them better
identify their own areas for improvement.
Working with students who are
assessing their learning, also helps
validate the work that goes on in the
classroom. “When I watch students
learn from their mistakes,” says Ms.
Gray, “It makes me feel like what I’m
teaching is actually being used and
reinforced. Ultimately, it reassures you
that what you are teaching works.”
Teachers also learn from their students’
mistakes. An 18-year veteran of
teaching, Elize Marais, who has taught
in South Africa, Korea and UAE, states,
“I’ve learned more from my students
than I think I’ve taught them. I’ve had
some amazing kids in my life. Nobody
can explain that feeling you get when
you’re bonding with the kids and they
are opening up to you.”
Class Time
“That bond,” she says, “includes them
trusting their teacher enough to share
their mistakes. This trust is something
special. I have had the most beautiful
experiences. My students have carried
me throughout some of the most
difficult moments of my life.”
An added benefit for her is her students
have also helped her become a better
parent. “I have learned from their
mistakes and their complaints to see
what I’ve been doing with my own child.”
An important lesson in failing is to
recognize where you went wrong. It
also helps to understand that there are
other options that can be explored that
could get us the answers that we need.
It is O.K. to fail. It is our ability to learn
from our mistakes and become better
that will lead to success. As educators,
it is good to admit when you have
made a mistake. Your students will
understand. We all make mistakes, but
each mistake is an opportunity to learn
something new about what we failed at
and more importantly about ourselves.