It’s natural for parents to want their children to do well at school, but from an early age we are taught failure is bad and it means we are doing something wrong. This is something which continues throughout school, a place where students are being taught the skills and knowledge needed to prepare them for life latter on. The word FAIL is now so unpopular in education TAFE students no longer receive a PASS or FAIL but are deemed COMPENTENT or NOT COMPENTENT. What this ignores is the fact failure is inevitable and a necessary part of life. As Tom Watson, the founder of IBM said, “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” So, if we want our children to succeed in life, why aren’t we teaching them to fail?
Look to the video game
Most video games have the basic structure of a main character being given a task which leads them on a journey where at the end they fight the evil villain of “end boss.” In Super Mario Brothers, Mario travels through the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool from Bowser and in The Legend of Zelda, Link journeys through the Kingdom of Hyrule to rescue Princess Zelda from Gannon. In these videogames, players face a range of different obstacles and challenges. In the case of Super Mario, boulders and spiked balls can hurt him. In Zelda Link has an ocarina which he uses to solve music-based puzzles.
So, how does Mario Brothers and Zelda relate to failure?
It’s simply really. In order to “win the game” players need to defeat the end boss, i.e Bowser or Gannon. However, most of the time they won’t achieve this on their first go. They FAIL. But as many parents will know, rather than seeing this a failure, kids view this an opportunity to assess, improve and try again. They think about they could do differently; they consider what didn’t work and adjust their strategy until eventually the boss is defeated.
And the point is?
Next time when your kid doesn’t get the mark they hoped for in an exam or didn’t make the cut for the sports team, ask yourself “what would life be life if we approached it more like a video game.”
