Admitting Failure is an open space for development organizations to admit and learn from failure for more effective aid.
Understand why failure matters
Read great failure stories
It may seem counter-productive, but I'm a big fan of failure. I love it. The opportunity to fail means you've had an opportunity to learn. To figure something out that you certainly would have missed if you succeeded the first time around. You learn better how things work, how they fit together, when you fail. Failure is so beautiful. It tells you so much about a person.
A person who slaps the dirt and uses the dust to chalk their hands for the next round... that's the kind of person I seek out in life. That is someone I want to talk to. Not just chat with, but sit and really TALK to. Converse. Share ideas. Think with.
When I was teaching the biology STEM program at my university, I worked with at-risk 6th - 9th graders. I had a different group of kids every class. Never repeating. Never seeing the same kids again. I had one chance... one tiny little opportunity to give them something useful to take with them for the rest of their lives. Sure, biology is amazing and I live for science, but these kids... they don't live for school. They have been raised to think of themselves as less likely to succeed. Many of them had never been taught to graph or how to do arithmetic. And the last thing I want to do is push things on them that make them feel dumb. That is NO way to make kids learn. It doesn't make them learn at all. Kids are terrified of math and science. It's very often seen as difficult and sometimes impossible by kids who have no confidence in their intelligence. It's scary. Science and mathematics are huge, massive subjects. Often taught in a manner that portrays them far less mutable than they actually are. Science is constantly changing, and with it, many of the things we thought were true.
So I would ask them a simple question: "Who can tell me what the word 'science' means?"
They often had fantastic answers. But, none of them actually hit the nail on the head.
So I would tell them. Science actually comes from Latin. Traced back to the 12th century. It means knowledge. That's it. Nothing scary. Nothing bigger than they can handle. Knowledge is science and science is knowledge. And that to gain knowledge, you often have to seek, and discover, and poke, and prod, and learn things you didn't think were related to what you were seeking, but they actually ARE related. And while you are out looking for one answer, you are creating an entire web of answers and knowledge. And during that time... you fail. A lot. Any good scientist can tell you that they have failed. A lot. And scientists are often very respected people (even if they don't have the best paycheck or much recognition) they are very well respected and looked up to. But every single one has failed over and over and over again. They just got better at being wrong. And once you learn WHY something is wrong, you just might be able to deduce what's correct.
No matter what the dictionary says, failure isn't a noun. It's a verb. It's something you do, not a burden you carry with you forever. You do it, and then you carry on having been made better for it. Learn what you can. Always learn what you can.
