Must we celebrate mistakes?
When was the last time you celebrated a mistake made by your doctor? Or an airline? Or your political representative?
It was a mistake, and the other students knew it. Dominic, a 7th grader, had confidently stated that –4 + 7 = –3. Oops. Had he practiced adding negative numbers for hours and hours but never mastered it? Or had he never practiced at all?
My strategy for responding to moments like these begins in August. It doesn't take long for a student to volunteer an idea or answer that's incorrect, and it takes even less time for another student to laugh or attack. "What?" they'll say. "How could you possibly think that 4 × 9 is 63?"
It's a critical moment, arguably the most important of the entire year. I wait until the room returns to silence and then ask a question honestly and without a smile: "Who knows everything about math?" I give them a chance to look around and see that no one is raising their hand. Not even me. Then I continue.
"Every person in this room has more to learn, myself included. We won't have that kind of language in our class." I say it once, with as firm a voice as I'll use all year, and I rarely have to say it again.
Once I've established that we won't tease students for their mistakes it's much easier to transform them into an opportunity for learning. When Dominic claimed that –4 + 7 = –3, I could feel the tension. I paused for a moment to give everyone a chance to digest the claim, and then I broke the silence.
"Thank you, Dominic. Is there any disagreement?"1 I could have just corrected Dominic on the spot, but how boring would that have been? The other students were leaning forward in their seats, eager to know what would happen next. Sometimes tension is a good thing.
A few students raised their hands, eager to correct the mistake. One of them did, and, perhaps remembering the conversation we had back in August, he focused on the math and not the person. There was more positive than negative on the left-hand side of the equation, he said, so the right-hand side must be positive, too. Another student explained her thinking by referencing the number line above the board. It was a good conversation, but what about for Dominic?
This topic has been on my mind recently because a few weeks ago I was asked to give a short presentation at my school on "celebrating mistakes." But I wasn't sure what to say, since I don't think of my handling of mistakes as a celebration. I'm not sure what to call it.
Instead of cause for celebration, I think of them as a normal part of the learning process. Because in a math class, that's what they are. If you spend too much time reading books on teaching (guilty), business books (repeat offender), or self-help books (put me away for life), you'll see a common mantra: failures should be cherished, mistakes grow your brain, productive struggle is the holy grail of learning.
But I don't believe that mistakes are the holy grail of learning. Inevitable? Of course. A sign that a student is still trying? Absolutely. But not worthy of celebration in their own right. When was the last time you celebrated a mistake made by your doctor? Or an airline? Or your political representative?
My own experience as a student tells me that mistakes are the enemy. They sap the momentum of learning and make me less likely to want to try again. This doesn't mean we should hide our mistakes or minimize them. We can talk about mistakes without celebrating them, and we can correct them with love and compassion. The sooner we do that, the sooner we move students toward the greatest motivator of all: success.
I couldn't see inside Dominic's head, but I know from experience that he likely felt foolish, maybe even dumb. He shared an answer confidently only to have two of his peers explain why he was wrong. What could I do to keep Dominic in the game? I focused on two things: expressing gratitude and normalizing the mistake.
"Thank you for giving us the opportunity to learn from that mistake," I said, and I meant it. Next came the normalization. "Would someone else like to volunteer a mistake?" It never ceases to amaze me that students will raise their hands in a situation like this, but they do. Is it because I thank the students who come before them? Or maybe sharing a mistake is their way of showing they’ve learned from it and grown. Either way, these other students know they've made a mistake and yet share it anyway. That takes courage. That is worth celebrating.
I make sure to do this even if the statement is correct so as not to tip students off that it was a mistake.