Lesson 6: Feedback

Lesson 6: Feedback

What is your relationship with feedback?

Something that has stuck with me for a while as an educator and coach is that many people, especially kids, have a terrible relationship with feedback. In the US I think a lot of this comes from the fact that grade school doesn’t value feedback it only values results. I find myself asking the question a lot lately, “how can I shift my material in class to incentivize seeking feedback and criticism and remove the weight of the result.”

When I’m on the field coaching, I always incentivize risk taking and mistakes because the training ground is a place to learn and failure and feedback are essential for learning. Yet in the more formal educational spaces, and I imagine professional spaces as well, we create a focus around the opposite. It only makes sense then that we would be developing students, athletes and people with a very poor relationship feedback.

I wonder how you all feel about this and if you would like to share your relationship with feedback and your views on why you think so many young people avoid it.

Take a minute to share your thoughts below and also provide an example of a time when failure was influential in reaching success.

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