Block, Melissa. “Tavis Smiley: If At First You Don’t Succeed, ‘Fail Up’”. May, 4th 2011. www.npr.org. July, 18th 2011. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135985392/tavis-smiley-if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-fail-up
This is an audio interview with Tavis Smiley where he is promoting his book Fail Up, but he also talks about the adversity he encountered in all his years of broadcasting. Smiley is an author, commentator, and talk show host that discusses politics and African American issues. In this interview, he places an importance on his failures, and how he could not have experienced success without all those failures. Not only does he talk about himself, he talks about Barack Obama and others who failed at first, but went on to experience great success. In the end, people do not need to be scared of failure, as it will lead to learning that will help them in the future.
Working with struggling readers is, wait for it…a struggle. One of things that must be done is to build up their confidence in themselves and their ability. I like this little audio excerpt because it tells kids that it’s okay to make mistakes, and they have to make those mistakes before they can get things “right.” Originally, I was going to use this inspire my students before they took their English 1 EOC, but that was a time where I hoped they wouldn’t fail. This year I might play it near the beginning of the year, to let them know that their will be times where they will face hardship in the class, but if they keep working at it, they will have success. I might pair it with a partner discussion and have them make a list of things they struggle with and potential ideas as to how they can conquer their problems.
This i a great idea. We need to teach our student how to deal with "failure" and how to see that it' part of learning. Persistence. It would be interesting to have them research famous people and their "failures" or even interview people.
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