As we begin a new year at Shanghai American School, I thought the article When Success Leads to Failure from the Atlantic by Jessica Lahey was just the article I needed for my first post.  As teacher and a parent, I want my kids to succeed and do well when it comes to school, but so often we don’t realize how much learning comes from failure.  Getting good grades/marks should not be the end all, be all of school.  School, and home for that matter, should be environments where a child is able to explore their interests, discover new ideas and concepts independently (at times with some guidance!) and let their creative juices out!  No focus scores or marks, learning just for the sake of learning. Embracing failure as a learning tool and showing students how empowering it is to continue to want to learn on their own should be goals as teachers and parents.  I’m ready and I hope other parents and educators are ready to welcome failure into their lives as well.  Here’s to the 2015-16 Learning Year!