You will often hear the term “a culture of error”* used in MacLaren’s classrooms. Creating a culture of error might seem surprising and even counterintuitive given the emphasis we also place on excellence and growth. But these ideas are closely related.
At MacLaren, we attempt to create a culture in which students feel that it is safe to struggle and see the growth and improved understanding that result. We want to model this as teachers and help our students support one another to openly acknowledge error not as a celebration of being wrong but as the most effective first step in moving beyond error and into understanding.
A culture of error recognizes that errors are inevitable and that they play a crucial role in the process of learning. We encourage students to embrace mistakes and to accept them as a natural part of lifelong learning. Students should not be afraid to ask a question or to admit when their initial impression has been wrong. Rather than giving students the answers, we encourage them to ponder, question, and wonder. In doing this, they will inevitably run into confusion or error, and this experience acts as the springboard for deeper inquiry. This is the moment to read a text more closely, to ask a question of classmates or teachers, or to attempt to solve a problem in a new way.
“Our highest good is not that students get the right answer right away,” Kara Hrbacek, a MacLaren faculty member said. “Our highest good is that students are learning along the way, which means they’re going to get things wrong as they move from less understanding to more. Normalizing the process of learning, the struggle to understand through questioning and trial and error, increases their willingness to take a chance, recognize what might be wrong or incorrect, and then take that as a next step towards depth and breadth of understanding.”
Embracing a culture of error is crucial to our students’ development both within a community of learners and as agents of their own education.
* This term was coined by Doug Lemov in his book Teach Like a Champion.