A Place Where Failure is Encouraged - Google X

As a teacher, my goal is to help my students learn how to do something.  Whether it is writing a paper, punctuating a sentence, or reading an article critically, I want my students to do it "the right way."  While I hopefully allow my students to make mistakes and learn from them, there are definitely times when I'm probably too narrow-minded in this regard.  This article about Google X on the Fast Company website really opened my eyes when it talked about how a large company like Google views mistakes.

I had never heard of Google X before reading this article, but it is interesting how they ENCOURAGE their employees to fail because they will learn from those failures.  Hopefully there will be a day in my teaching career when learning from a failure will be valued as much as doing something "right" because I don't want my students to fear failure.  I can think of many times in my life when I failed but learned a valuable lesson or solved another problem on which I hadn't even been focusing.  This article emphasizes that failure can be okay, and I hope to instill that value in my students.

The Long-term Effects of Loans

In this article from NPR, three college graduates discuss their college loans and some of the problems they face because of those loans.  As the seniors get ready to head off to college and the sophomores feel like their opportunity to go to college will never arrive, I encourage you to think about how you are going to pay for college when that day arrives.