What are some of your feelings when you make a mistake? Are you able to move on easily, “nothing to see here!” or do you dwell and think, “if only I had…”? How about the children in your class or family? What are you teaching them about mistakes? In this month’s newsletter we explore how emotional intelligence can help you learn from mistakes and make them a vital part of learning. Keep reading for EQ research and resources you can use for you, your faculty and students.

🔴 Thinking About: Mistakes are good right?

🟡 Research says: Boost of EQ mitigates teacher burnout

🟢 Try it Yourself: 4 tips for reframing mistakes 

🔵 Mark your calendar: Events for educators – will you join us?

🔴 Thinking About: Mistakes are good right?

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4 Tips for Creating a Culture of Learning from Mistakes

by Patty Freedman

🔴 Thinking About: Mistakes are good, right?

We all make mistakes. What sets us apart is how we handle them. 

Very young people are often unselfconscious about mistakes. When we are young, we are driven to find answers and test: what does this taste like? what does this do? where does this go? how does this work? We feel little shame about doing something wrong, our curiosity overpowers everything. Over time, however, we start to notice other people’s reactions to our behavior; we learn that it is good to be correct and efficient. 

Our brains also support this orientation. Human brains prioritize survival and efficiency. To do so, our brains want to continue doing things they already know, preferring predictable patterns. In fact our brains dislike errors so much that when people in an FMRI scan experience being wrong, their brains show a fight or flight response. For a brain, it seems alarming and bad to be wrong.

But wanting to be right, being afraid of making a mistake, will limit us. We stay away from the unknown. We hold back in our experimentation, innovation, creativity, risk taking. When we avoid anything too challenging, we stop learning and growing – and this inhibits our ability to help others learn and grow (here’s our recentEQ Coach Newsletter on how this applies to coaching).

If we can reframe mistakes as evidence of learning or growth, then mistakes are actually important markers for us. When we make use of mistakes, we identify and apply the lesson next time. Mistakes become tools we can use. 

Talking openly about our mistakes can be hard for some people, but doing so can help change the conversation about mistakes. With children, sharing your mistakes and lessons-learned teaches them that mistakes are something valuable rather than something to hide. 

Journal Prompts for Reflection

• Are there spaces or topics or people where you are very worried about making mistakes? What might help shift this worry toward curiosity and learning?
• What about areas where you are less concerned about mistakes? 
• How can you become more self-aware about how fear of making a mistake holds you back?

🟡 RESEARCH SAYS: Accepting Mistakes Builds a Culture of Learning

A study published in Journal Organizational Change Management (2020) examined the effect of “acceptance of mistakes” on a learning climate and organization’s adaptability to change. Researchers in Poland compared two groups: students aged 18–24 years and employees in knowledge-driven organizations aged >24 years. They measured acceptance of mistakes, and both groups were tasked to develop structural equation models then assess and adapt the models.

The study found that teams with a culture of learning (where mistakes are accepted and use mistakes as a tool to support learning) are more adaptable and able to change. The students had this culture while the employees did not, suggesting a change in culture-of-learning during the early employment years.

Researchers found that, “organizations that do not develop mechanisms of learning from mistakes lose the learning potential of their employees.” Further it concludes, “this study breaks with the convention of ‘exaggerated excellence’ and promotes the acceptance of mistakes in organizations to develop organizational intelligence.”

How can this study inform our classrooms? To create a stronger ‘culture of learning,’ lift up mistakes as evidence of learning and actively share mistakes. This is likely to develop more adaptable and innovative thinkers. More research is needed to develop best practices for educators to celebrate mistakes but evidence suggests that embracing mistakes has merit.

🟢 TRY IT YOURSELF: 4 tips for reframing mistakes 

Here are four tips adapted from Harvard Graduate School of Education to help parents and educators develop a culture of learning. Try these tips yourself, and with your students:

1. Share stories of mistakes

Try these journal prompts or pair share: Share about a time when you made a mistake. How did it make you feel? How did you handle it? What helped you recover from your mistake?

When we share mistakes it can lighten the load because we learn that everyone makes mistakes. Also that mistakes are not shameful. Sometimes mistakes can be funny and sometimes they can teach us things about ourselves.

What mistakes are harder to handle? Have your group create a list of mistakes (they can be fictional scenarios) and then as a group rank them and discuss what makes them harder to handle. Explore the inner skills (courage, honesty, perseverance, commitment, trust) that are needed to overcome mistakes.

2. Reframe mistakes as opportunities for learning

Try this journal prompt: rewrite these “self-talk”statements about mistakes that are not helpful into a more positive reframe so mistakes can be lessons.

• “I’m such a failure…”
• “I won’t ever get this right..”
• “This always happens to me…”

It can feel terrible to keep making the same mistakes over and over. But learning is a process and sometimes we need to stick with it. Changing the way we talk to ourselves about mistakes is an important part of developing a growth mindset.

3. Spot opportunities around you

One of the best ways to learn something is by applying it to everyday life. So encourage one another to notice mistakes around you — and find opportunities to solve them.

Journal prompt or group discussion:

Collect moments of mistakes you see in your everyday life. What could be improved to prevent the mistake? Collaboratively, share observations and solutions.

4. Make it a habit

Many classrooms or families have check-in time at the end of the day– change up the usual check in question to include “What’s a mistake you made today? What did you learn from it?”

Making mistakes into an everyday topic helps change the status of mistakes. They are everywhere and happen to everyone. Mistakes are ok!

🔵 MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Events for educators – will you join us?

Free online events

• EQ Café “Unwinding Anxiety” about shifting from reaction to response – multiple dates
• Emotional intelligence mini-workshops online – multiple dates

Certification

• ​The EQ Educator Certification – multiple dates

​in partnership with Antioch University, online events

• ​SEL for Educator Wellbeing certificate program – starts April 17
• ​EdD with SEL Specialization, next term starts May 4 – free info session on April 16

​
in partnership with Teachers College, Columbia University, in-person courses

• S​EL Educator Institute​ – June 26 – 28, 2024 ​in New Orleans, LA
• SEL Leadership Institute – July 29 – 30, 2024 in New York, NY

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For more on EQ and Education, I recommend: