Markforged Distinguished Teachers in STEM Scholarship

I am a grades 3-5 Venture/Enrichment teacher. My amazing school feels that all students are gifted in some way, so all 500 of them get to come to my class. And let me tell you, we have the best time learning from each other. Each year, I hope to use my interests and technology skills to help my students feel comfortable with technology. I want them to see that there are so many possibilities ahead of them if they learn to hone their skills and use technology in any field they choose. I also want them to take failure in stride. In every single class, we discuss failures and how to overcome and grow from them. To grow, you have to fail. To create a safe environment for failure, I share stories of scientific failures that years later were deemed a success, like Post-It notes. I also share stories of failures that required numerous revisions and redesigns, like WD-40 which resulted after 39 failures. We talk about my own stories of failure and not giving up so they see that overcoming failure is a lifelong journey. I tell them of my crippling fear of applying to graduate school for fear of not being accepted and how I only recently overcame that fear. I help them understand the power and learning that come from getting it wrong but not giving up. The word “yet” is often spoken in my room, and it holds incredible power and encourages potential when students believe it. In my classroom, students are given opportunities to fail at a task to evaluate what went wrong and try again. STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) education is a direct way to help students experience success through failure. The design process that STEAM incorporates is built around learning from failures. Coding and robotics programs also build student confidence in overcoming failure. Students in my classroom and robotics club learn quickly that programing is trial and error. Students learn to pinpoint what caused them to be unsuccessful in their task so they can modify their plan and try again. The tenacity and resiliency students learn through these opportunities carry over to other subjects lessening the grip that fear of failure has on them, and encourages them to take risks. Students who are willing to take risks, fail, and try again are going to be the leaders our world will need. They will have confidence in their ability to solve the problems of tomorrow and the skills to work together as a team with others on those problems. When students are not afraid to fail and learn from it, the future is wide open to them. This is how I envision using my skills to make the world a better place. By making sure that my students have the determination and grit to work through failure. To dust themselves off and try again. I hope to help cultivate grownups who believe in hard work to reach a goal and have the perseverance to turn failures into successes. That is how I hope to make tomorrow better than today.