The Right To Fail

Last Thursday we had an interesting conversation in my Generalist II class. One of my classmates was talking about his internship, an organization that works with mentally challenged adults. The organization really values the self-determination of their clients. My classmate was having a little trouble because he felt he was working with his client and setting him up to fail. My professor - whom even after only two classes I can tell is SO knowledgeable and really look forward to learning from her - stepped in at that moment.

My professor told us that a part of self-determination is the right to fail. Everyone has the right to try something and not succeed. That's a part of learning. If we try to "save" everyone from failure then they are unable to really learn on their own. Our job as a social worker is to "create the conditions for development" (her words). She gave my classmate tips for facilitating his client's learning process instead of just telling him what to do. It really got me thinking! Our professor told us there was a study done in England (I believe) that looked at the amount of time in sessions the social workers were talking and the amount of time the client was talking. The social workers spoke on average for 80% of the sessions. That's way too much time! It should be the opposite.

After class I called my mom to tell her what I learned about the right to fail because it was such a smart concept to me. She said it's a lot like parenting and right away I could see the connection. Our parents do what they can to teach us and facilitate opportunities for us to learn but ultimately it's us who make the decisions. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. The beautiful thing about failure is there is always something to learn at the end. I think we're better for it!