“If what you are doing is working, it is an intervention. If it is not working, it is assessment.” This line is one a colleague shared with me earlier this year that though not procedurally accurate, I absolutely love. Being an incredible educator requires continual growth, and continual growth requires learning from your failures. It is so hard not to take it personal when your work does not pan out. Your interventions are your babies! You collaborated, hypothesized, created, and implemented. You wanted it to go well for so many reasons and it can hurt on a personal level when the desired outcomes are not seen.
But failing is a part of life and a part of the job. When we deny ourselves the gold that can come from failing we can end up eventually going broke with creativity. Procedurally this means going back, looking at the data and questioning where you went wrong, but you can end with something incredible. You can end with a better solution. An evaluated experience can be the greatest teacher of teachers, but only if you tend to the process. Success with kids comes at the price of failing, learning, and acting on that learning. Are you willing to pay the price?