As teachers we are very fond of certain quotations:

• Edison – “I’ve not failed, I’ve found 1,000 ways that don’t work”
• Churchill – “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts”
• Beckett – “Try again. Fail again. Fail better”

And many more. However, I sometimes feel that this is an area where we practice more than we preach.

In schools we tend to run very regular testing cycles: Mid-terms, Christmas, Easter, Pre-Cert, Summer, class tests. We run assessment for learning, and we run assessment of learning: Formative and Summative.

The language around assessment is changing, and we do try to look more for learning points, etc. However, while I don’t have a clear idea of what a solution looks like, I still hold that we are avoiding failure. Or perhaps I mean that we are doing our utmost to avoid making a mistake.

There is a cultural basis for this conclusion. All one has to do is look at the online pile-on when anyone steps out of line. Look at the polarisation of viewpoints in multiple public spheres. In such an environment, to stand out, to make a mistake is almost an invite for criticism or ridicule.

This does not just apply to schools. Multiple public enterprises are tending to take the ‘safest’ option. We ensure we have policies to back up whatever we do (and rightly so), but we sometimes err on the side of using policies as a rationale for not trying a new direction. We are losing the courage to stand up for our convictions – in the fear that these convictions will make us unpopular.

We don’t want it to be said that we have made a mistake. We don’t want to be seen as less than perfect. This is a nonsense. We are less than perfect, we are human. By extension, any enterprise of which we are a member is also not perfect.

Mistakes happen. Failure happens. And this is normal.

But we treat it as something shameful. The word ‘Fail’ is a four-letter word to be avoided in polite company.

If you were to ask any of my colleagues to rank my sporting knowledge on a scale of 1 to 10, you’d end up with a negative number. Nonetheless, I’m going to go with a sporting metaphor.

No matter how much a manager suspects that his team will lose, he will not avoid fielding the team.

In training, teams will regularly evaluate past performances in order to learn and build a better future for the team. Failure is not avoided, mistakes are an accepted part of any process.

So what am I trying to say?

We need to accept a few things:

• We are human. We make mistakes
• By extension, any enterprise in which we are involved can also make mistakes
• This is normal

Once we accept this we need to be clear as regards our role, our motivations, our purpose and our beliefs – what we stand for.

We need to learn how to pick ourselves up after a mistake, and where it’s needed we need to learn how to apologise properly.

Perhaps we could even learn to actually embrace failure as proof that we are trying.