20/02/2026
FRIDAY FREE IN-SERVICE TRAINING FOR TEACHERS
Growth Mindset: How Failure Works in a Learner
I have sat in a lot of classrooms as a student, a teacher and as an educator who has spent years watching how learning actually happens not how we wish it would, but how it really does.
One thing I know for certain. We have not taught teachers enough about failure.
Not failure as a bad thing.
Not failure as something to avoid but failure as information.
Yes! FAILURE as an INFORMATION, a necessary part of learning. As something a child's brain actually needs.
Here is what the research tells us and what I havee observed with my own eyes in real classrooms.
The brain grows through challenge not through easy tasks or through getting everything right.
It grows through struggle, effort, trying again. This is called NEUROPLACITY— the brain's ability to build new connections when it is pushed.
Every time a child tries something hard and fails, the brain is working. The question is not whether they failed. The question is WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
As Carol Dweck, psychologist and pioneer of Mindset research, puts it "In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow."
That is the SHIFT, we're chasing for our students and for ourselves as teachers.
A child with a fixed mindset believes "I am either smart or I'm not. Failing means I am not."
A child with a growth mindset believes "I can't do this YET but I can learn."
That one word — 🔥YET🔥 — is not motivational fluff. It is a completely different relationship with learning.
..(SIGH)and here is the hard truth. Children don't develop one or the other on their own.
We shape it.
The teacher.
The classroom.
The resources and
The response to the moment failure arrives.
So before your next lesson, try this.
📕🎯Pick one task that will genuinely challenge your students. Not impossible. Just hard enough.
When they get stuck, don't rescue them immediately but don't ignore them either.
Just watch. Notice who shuts down. Who gets frustrated. Who quietly gives up. Who keeps trying.
That becomes your data. That is where we begin.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part free training I am sharing freely, right here on my feed.
Part 2 is coming soon and we will be going deeper. We will talk about us (TEACHERS) and what we can do in the moment that changes everything.
Save this post. Share it with a teacher who needs it. Every classroom deserves this conversation. 💛
Naomi Arbenser | Educator · Writer · Literacy Advocate
Founder, Omi Learning Academy
