41. Encourage "mistakes"; celebrate mistakes.

41. Encourage "mistakes"; celebrate mistakes.

Huh? Yes, encourage mistakes. Student who are afraid of making mistakes cannot learn from them, nor can they become good risk-takers. Good learning and creativeness stem from being a risk-taking explorer! Let your students become used to learning from their mistakes. You can even encourage them to make mistakes on purpose -- have them stage mistakes for each other. Then discuss what can be learned from the mistakes that were made. Let mistakes form a natural part of their learning process.

Q. How can you get your students to make mistakes for the sake of learning? In Japan, this may be very difficult. What are your thoughts?

"Mistakes are OK" has always been my teaching motto; I even had a huge sign made that was positioned at the top of the whiteboard in one of the high schools I used to teach in to remind the students that I did not expect perfection. 
I have observed that Japanese students do not have the self-confidence to allow themselves to be wrong. It is a huge barrier to overcome, however, when they do discover that "mistakes are [genuinely] ok", they seem to 'enjoy' taking risks in the classroom. 

Hi Sharon!


That's good to hear! 
Mistakes provide us chances to learn more.
Robert