Perhaps of all the humanities, the creative arts come closest to valuing failure. Poets and painters don't expect to get it right the first time. That's the idea of workshopping as a pedagogy, right? Still, there's a real difference. I'd be willing to bet that most creative writers bring a piece of work into a workshop secretly hoping it's a success. Sure, they know they need help on aspects of their story or poem, but that's not the same as failing.
A computer program that doesn't run is a failure. A program that produces no usable data about the text it was set up to analyze is a failure. Why don't those failures devastate the developers? Because each time their efforts fail, the developers learn something they can use to get closer to success the next time.
Nigel Coutts on 22 Jan 17At the start of each year we arrive back from our break hopefully rested and energised. The new year brings many new opportunities including new students, new team members and new teaching programmes. We begin again the climb up the hill with a fresh group of learners arriving at our doors full of excitement who will rely on us to meet their learning needs in the year ahead. All of this means we are at risk of starting the year with a certain level of panic. There is so much to do, our students are not accustomed to our routines, we don't know each other well, there are parents to meet, assessments to be done and before we know it we are back to being busy.
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