1.1 Inspirational Quote

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  Posted by CUNY Mindset Initiative on December 26, 2023 at 4:27 pm

  1.1 Inspirational Quote

  “Failure is a greater teacher than success.”​

  —  Clarissa Pinkola Estés

  💬  Discussion:

  1. Respond to this quote: Comment, reflect, agree/disagree, share a similar or contradictory quote, or provide an example to support or reject this quote. You may use text, video, audio, etc.
  2. Respond constructively and substantively (≥2 sentences) to another participant’s comments.

• Thomas Michael Conroy

  Participant

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  Good point. Success is motivating. And failure can be a good learning experience.
  Joshua (He/him)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  Failure can be painful to endure despite knowing the lesson you’ve learned from it. And instead, we only want to the feel the relief and happiness that comes from success. Especially when your efforts have built up to a grand event.
  Lee Schere (he/him)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  I aso appreciate this empathic response, Rachel. While failure is a great teacher in the abstract, the emotional dimension can really be an obstacle. Growth mindset is hard won and the role of teachers, advisors and coaches can be really influential in helping a student navigate failure to ensure that lessons can be learned and that failure does not undermine their progress. So glad CUNY ASAP students have you on their team!
  Cynthia Olvina (she/her/hers)

  Participant

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  I appreciate the quote as I teach this as well. As we move forward in our day to day, we tend to focus on the failing part. But it is with the lesson learned where success if found. Failure helps us recognize our limitations and helps us find where we can improve ourselves.
  Samina Shahidi

  Participant

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  further exploration works for me!
  Seema Suri (she//her/)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  I agree that failure is a greater teacher than success, but of course it depends on how we deal with that failure. Are we afraid of failure, or are we used to dealing with failure in a thoughtful and creative way. Do we practice dealing with failure in a way that is not intimidating and drives us to question our authority over a topic.
  Lucien Smith

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  I tell my students, my children, my colleagues, friends there is no failure only more data and information in the process of becoming.
  In baseball if you hit .300 you are considered a Hall of Famer, essentially that is a 70% non-success rate. The master has failed more times than the beginner has conceived of possible attempts. In essence we all have our own timeline, and it is in this process that we find ourselves and place in the world which is the goal of education.
  William Suarez

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  hi I am William.

  We are learning about ourselves and from others in the process.Failures are part of our personal lab. We learn how to identify different angles to complete a task and evolve keeping us humble. It is an ongoing process, not the end of the journey.
  Samantha Sheppard-Lahiji (she/her)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:14 am

  I like the idea of problem sets of higher difficulty for students. This may be beneficial in the recitation portion of my own class because I find that the students may adopt a more passive approach and place more emphasis on the recitation instructor to guide them through. I would actually be interested to see how many students enter college with a fixed versus growth mindset and how that impacts their approach to classes that do have higher withdraw rates.
  Katherine Joubin

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  I agree that failure can certainly be an impetus for self examination/reflection on what might have contributed to that failure. However, it is a balance between failure causing discouragement and inhibiting future efforts vs failure resulting in effective self examination.
  Elizabeth Mazzola

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  Once I get past my feelings of defensiveness and embarrassment, failing usually forces me to push myself in new places and in that way learn more about something as well as more about myself
  Belinda Linn Rincon (she/her/ella)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  I agree that failure often has more benefits than success (depending on the situation and what the stakes are). Failing is humbling, but it can be a great release of stress. In other words, aiming for success or perfection is incredibly stressful, but if or once you fail, the pressure is off and you can complete the work/challenge with more focus or ease.
  Elizabeth Klein (she/her)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  When I first completed the module I was cautious to monitor my responses. This is because failure isn’t really that acceptable in educational settings, especially for professionals. Failure equals shame in some circles. For students in grad school, there is only one grade acceptable in my classes, which is A+. I am fine with someone’s goal to be an A+, and I understand this fully, but process is so important.

  In process there isn’t perfection. Perfection equals paralysis (from AA – 12 step groups). I also feel that we are programmed for perfection in our society. In higher ed, it’s a hard sell to students, but I do go through process in my content which is around teaching of literacy. Students do free writing in class. I encourage creativity, experimentation and the only failure is failure to respond or if the student is AWOL.

  For myself, it is important model process for students and show a vulnerable side to students. I am careful about how much vulnerability because the course is about them. I measure it and provide just enough for students and that is how to let them see the human side. Part of this is building trust and community, which is another topic for another post.
  Rebecca L. Salois (she/her)

  Participant

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  Just like when you read your student evaluations and the one negative comment sticks with you more than the positive comments, so too is the case with failure. Failures stick with you longer and they give you drive to modify your actions going forward. So we remember what didn’t work and we modify our behavior to get different results the next time.

  When we are successful, we run the risk of becoming stagnant. If something is good enough, why push ourselves to get better? I mean, in theory sure, that should be our goal, but in practice that is not always the case. If you are successful, there is less of a drive to grow because growing might mean failure and of course we don’t want to fail.

  One of the things I want students to recognize is that we all fail at things sometimes and that’s okay. Failure also gives us a way to empathize with others who might struggle along the way as well.
  Elizabeth Stevenson (she/her)

  Member

  July 15, 2024 at 11:15 am

  Agree that it’s a blanket statement and over-simplification!