Celebrating Failure

   This TED Talk by Astro Teller, an employee at Google X, gave a lot of insight to failure that would be important to both students and teachers to listen to and take into their personal lives. He talked about the mission of their company and how they are not afraid of failure, but yet, embrace it. They understand that failing is a vital part in order to succeed. They actually try to make their projects fail so they can find a better approach to solving what ever problem they are tackling.
   Personally, having been a student and soon to be teacher, the question of, "what will happen if I fail?" has always been on the back burner of my mind. This talk helped me ease that question in knowing that failure is not the worse possible thing and that we learn from it. People are often scared or feel uncomfortable about risky projects that they do not know the outcome of. I think it is important for students to know that failure is okay and the best environment for it to happen is in a school setting. That way, teachers or other classmates can help you get back on track in order for them to achieve success.
   Another important lesson I learned from this video was that shifting your perspective is more powerful being smart. That is, if you can be flexible to more ideas instead of only doing tasks a certain way, it will open your horizons and help you get over failure. As a future teacher, I find this to be very important because in order for things to work smoothly and effectively in a class room, you need to be open in your thought process and quick on your toes. It does not matter how, "smart" you may be. The ability to be flexible and shift from one thing to another is a much better technique than just being book smart on a subject.
   I know in the future that the lesson I learned from failure will cary on with me and will be a powerful and useful technique for me as a teacher but to also express to my students to let them know that it is also okay for them to fail.