Failure Should Be a Graduation Requirement

Every university and high-school student should be required to fail one course before graduating.

It’s easy to focus on achievement, and reward those who meet (or exceed) expectations of performance.  Our school system feeds its success obsession using standardized tests, pass rates, and college admissions as a measurement of its effectiveness.

The problem is that many of the highest achievers graduate without ever being challenged.  They never learn how to take risks and fail.

Failure Hitting the Ground

The pressure to have high pass rates have made it tough to actually fail in Ontario high schools.  I’m not saying we should celebrate the failure to show up to class, or failure from a total lack of effort.

Real failure is about trying your hardest, and still not making it.

If every student were challenged to that level, we’d have the opportunity to teach real life lessons.  How to ask for help.  How to come to terms with your weaknesses.  How to push on when you feel like giving up.

With admission averages to many competitive Ontario university programs continuing the “upward spiral” that began over a decade ago, it’s no wonder students are allergic to failure.

At my alma mater, the University of Waterloo, you only have a 40% chance of receiving an admission offer to civil, mechanical, or software engineering if your high-school grade point average (GPA) is between 85 and 90%.  If your GPA is between 91 and 95%, the probability of being admitted jumps to 85%.

I’m not an engineer, and frankly, I would have never been able to make into a program at Waterloo if I had applied.  Even with such high admission averages, Waterloo was failing an average of 20% of its first-year engineering classes.  This bothered people so much they suggested making changes to the first-year curriculum in 2010.

As a residence don for 1st year engineers at Waterloo, I witnessed first-hand what failure would do to some of those 18-year olds.  Adult responsibility for their own learning hit many of them like a truck.  Some reacted by doubling down and studying seriously for the first time in their lives.  Others escaped into virtual worlds online.

For those of us who overcame it, failure was the best lesson of our lives.  My first lesson with failure didn’t come until I took a Japanese course for credit, and was blown out of the water by classmates who had studied it as a second language in Hong Kong and China.  Failing test after test taught me how to push myself harder, to ask for help, and how to take responsibility for something marked with the letter “F.”

If every school required students to fail at least one course, it would make failing okay.  Students would be encouraged to take risks, and get seriously challenged without the risk of their average slipping to an unacceptable 89%.

To have the F count as course credit, the student should have to (1) reflect on why the failure happened, (2) make a plan to overcome it by using all the resources at their disposal, (3) develop a “plan B” if their first plan doesn’t work, (4) follow through with the plan, and (5) reflect on the experience.

What do you think?  Would this ever work?  Would this have enriched your overall experience in school, or should we wait until people graduate before they’re allowed to fail?

Don’t Bring Your Laptop to Class

I don’t know when it happened, but law lectures have lost their terrifying charm.  In my experience, students’ unwillingness to speak up—and most teachers’ merciful unwillingness to demand answers—has replaced the Socratic method with more passive classroom learning.

Without that pressure, the need to thoroughly prepare  for the next day’s lecture has faded away.  Safely nuzzled into laptops, my 60+ fellow students can follow along with our lecture using a PowerPoint slide presentation, waiting for each legal issue to be pointed out.

The proud and the few who do prepare may be disappointed to find there is no class discussion they can use to flex their arguments.  Their interpretations are never challenged or questioned.

Law school doesn’t have to be like that.  Laptop learning can be done at home.  The classroom should be for vigorous advocacy and engagement with the material.

The Socratic Method

Do we have to go back to “Paper Chase”-style call and answer in class?  No, I don’t think so, even though it has its merits.  Being put on the spot, thinking on your feet, and applying the law to unpredictable questions are a great foundation for future skills as an advocate.

What’s missing is a greater emphasis on legal problem solving, instead of the more narrowly focused case method.  Is it possible to have it both ways?

I’d like to ask legal teachers to consider taking a new approach.  Here are some elements I’d like to see in my next lecture:

  1. Demand preparedness: ask students who aren’t prepared to leave
  2. Provide—or work with students to develop—materials to learn doctrinal fundamentals at home, so people don’t come to class to type a transcript of your lecture
  3. Focus on practical problems in class.  Start the lecture with an interesting exam-style fact pattern.  Use that as a lead-in to the area of law the students are about to spend four to eight months investigating.  Talk strategy.  Talk about what the case means for future litigants.  Refer back to the case as a concrete example for core concepts.
  4. Draw out quiet participants.  Reward participation.
  5. Make the back row of students sit in the front row.
  6. Ask that laptops be shut, bowed down, or left at home.  If students are dependent on typing what you are saying in class, they didn’t read the material.

Do you have a Professor or instructor who teaches like this?  Let me know in the comments below. I’ve met a few, but it isn’t the norm.

We shouldn’t leave law school without speaking up, advocating for a position, or making eye contact.  For our future clients, let’s try leaving our laptop at home.

4 Life Lessons I Learned Stacking Wood

Sometimes metaphors reveal themselves in ways you’d never expect.  Recently I spent an afternoon outside carrying a truckload of chopped wood across the yard, and stacked it in a neat pile.  At the end of it I had two things: a nice pile of wood and the realization that stacking wood is a lot like life.  Here’s why.

1. Starting with a plan is a good idea.

A stack of wood without a plan is just another pile of wood.  Mine needed to be tall and straight, and located in a key spot next to the fire pit, because that’s what I wanted.  We begin a lot of tasks by determining what we want and tracing the steps we need to take to get there.  So why don’t we approach life that way?

Determining what we want out of life can be challenging, but it’s not impossible.  Visualize what you want your life to look like.  Then map out the steps you need to take to get there.

2. Optimism and confidence can only take you so far.

I’m a big believer in optimism.  Keeping an open mind allows you to take chances other people might not.  You can’t drown in what-ifs when you’re optimistic – you start things – you learn and grow from everything new you try.

However, when you’re building up a stack of wood, optimism doesn’t keep the stack from falling down.  You still need to place each piece in a stable position if you expect it to stand up for long.  Life is like that.  Optimism helps you get started and get over those unavoidable mistakes.   It doesn’t keep your life from falling apart, it helps you pick up the pieces when it does.  Laying down a strong foundation is what supports your stack, so take the time to do it right.

3. One bad log can’t take down the whole pile.

In my final stack of logs there was more than one that was a little unsteady.  But if my pile collapsed it wasn’t because of any one log, it was usually because it wasn’t supported from below.

Work, relationships, health, finances and spirituality– these are all things that play a role in our lives in one way or another.  Keeping a balance helps us deal with the odd log that starts to roll out from under us.

4. Things don’t always fit together the way you think they will.

Sometimes it’s tough to tell where to put a piece of wood.  You can tell by the shape if it’s going to fit on top of the others, but you never really know until you slap it on to see if it wobbles.

Relationships, jobs and many other parts of your life are like that.  You think you have an idea of what’s perfect for you, but you really have no idea until you try it out.