Failure is Morally Right
I watched a video from the 2009 TED conference recently about practical wisdom and it struck me as relevant to a lot of what I do when I design learning programs for adults.
It seems like U.S. society as of late has emphasized a growing anti-intellectualism among the populace. I would argue that the anti-intellectual movement was a primary reason for the ascendancy of George W. Bush. There is a thirst in the country for a lurch away from the "educated elite" and their supposed progressive policies and thinking. This, combined with the high cost of education, may be a key component in the dismal numbers of higher-educated Americans: only 36% of adults in this country possess a college degree.
Barry Schwartz in his TED presentation discussed how society needs to place more emphasis on practical wisdom and empathy to help regain common sense and moral virtue. He used examples of rigid interpretation of the rule of law such as removing a child from his family because the father accidentally gave him alcohol in a lemonade drink, as a glaring case of society's inability to "improvise" outside of didactic rules to apply common sense. Our abdication of "improvising" to find solutions for day to day situations is forcing us to become morally bankrupt, and is fostering an inability to make decisions that serve all parties in their best interest.
Morally wise people know when and how to improvise, when to make exception to the rule, and use moral skills to serve other people. Schwartz stated in his talk that "wise people are made, not born." "Moral wisdom," he goes on to say, "requires experience. Wise people fail and learn from failure."
I agree, and would go even further to state that people learn best when failing. Failure is good, because it requires a person to try and understand how their performance was irregular, wrong, or inefficient enough to result in said failure. Through that deduction, people learn... you've heard the saying many times, probably from your own mother, "If you fail, then try try again."
An over reliance on rules denies us the ability to learn from failure, to do the right thing, and to be empathic to others. By divorcing ourselves of having to make a decision, we instead rely on over-restrictive guidelines, such as the one mentioned above, and become unwilling to take any situation in its conditional context and apply a common sense solution. Instead, we let the state interfere, and apply its own process to the matter, often resulting in over-regulation, under-regulation, or nonsensical solutions.
It is incumbent upon those of us who design curricula to establish relevant "failure zones" in the interactions, and to foster moral wisdom through those interactions. How do we foster moral wisdom? Schwartz stated that "Any work you do that involves interaction with others is moral work." By placing an emphasis on collaborative learning, designers can encourage connections between participants, and help transfer the singularity of individual accomplishment to the crowd. By leveraging the "wisdom of the crowds" the designer is doing their part in appealing to virtue. Through this new-found collaborative learning effort, and the feeling that it's OK to fail, learners will feel more confident in sharing and encouraging others: two key components of empathy.
If teachers would be allowed to introduce empathy into their lesson plans, we might also be able to address the growing anti-intellectual movement. For society to move away from this troubling trend, we must begin to teach children the value of virtue, and respect, and not be disinclined to look beyond the rigidity of rules to find solutions for specific situations.
By appealing to the "wisdom of the crowds" and involving others in the fostering of collective wisdom, we may just be able to bring back the belief that it's OK to apply common sense to problems we face, and to incubate practical wisdom in our students.
