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Have you ever had a time in your life when you failed at something and became so frustrated with yourself? Or, you completely shut the idea of trying again out of your brain? Well, that’s what happened to Rebecca.
Rebecca first came to the BRIEF program as a second grader. As she and her mom struggled with meeting their basic needs, Rebecca found BRIEF to be a program where she could learn new skills. However, learning new skills is not always an easy task. Most of the time, learning something new requires failing a few times before having an understanding of the skill at hand.
Rebecca learned this as she built a robot. As a visual learner, Rebecca decided to use the photos in the instructions packet to put the robot together. After she had pieced the robot together, she found that it did not work. This left Rebecca discouraged, and she felt defeated. Like Rebecca, sometimes we can feel discouraged, even when it seems we have done everything right. But life often throws obstacles in our way. We, however, must find ways to get around them.
When a volunteer noticed that Rebecca was distressed, they helped Rebecca assess the robot further. The volunteer and Rebecca found that she had actually pieced the robot together perfectly according to the pictures and the issue was within the instructions. Rebecca’s work was not the issue- the instructions were!
Rebecca learned that even when you do things right you can still fail, but failure is not final. Rebecca figured out how to make the robot work! In life, Problem-solving is often a trial-and-error process. As we are engaged with STEM, we also know they are learning essential life skills such as the importance of trying again.
We look forward to seeing how our students, like Rebecca, grow and decide that trying again is the best way to go!
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