Almost everyone of us was in a high school that aimed to develop students who are risk-takers. This means guiding students to explore new ideas and innovative strategies, challenging their ways of thinking and encouraging them to be confident in those decisions.
This is a life long skill. It requires students to step out of their comfort zone and become courageous in their choices and actions. But, there is a hint of uncertainty and failure attached to the idea. How can teachers successfully encourage students to take risks and be resilient in the face of challenges?
An example for instance being in a business class we were always told that an entrepreneur is a risk taker. Their meaning of risk taker in his case was He has a fire burning inside his belly, a vision and a dream that he will do anything and everything in his power to bring to life. He will set himself up to succeed, put the pieces in place to make it happen, take his entire team with him, and learn from his failures so that he can keep going and keep getting better.
Probably one or two of your teachers was so much brainwashed in the making of his or her students to be risk takers. They believed risk-taking is crucial to academic success and development. I mean its not wrong neither is it right to some of us who fear uncertainty and failure of course. Once in a while they tried to convince us that being a risk taker as a student you’re exposed to ideas and concepts that you might never have known about and that risk-taking can expose a student to different ideas or different cultures and therefore developing their problem solving abilities.
However, encouraging students to participate in risk-taking activities or behaviour is not always easy, both from the perspective of a student encouraging themselves and their peers, or a teacher encouraging their students. I mean as for my opinion, “For many students there is almost an inherent fear of failure, we ought to have people such as our lecturers or teachers to challenge us as much as possible, and give us the required support and feedback whenever we fail.”
Howsever risk taking is a motivating factor challenging yourself to do hard things with or without your parents support is the best thing we can do for ourselves.It’s admitting that you just might fail, but you try it anyway and you work harder to succeed. Failure is an intimidating idea and unfortunately, the fear of failure prevents many people from challenging themselves to do difficult things. But in order to be truly successful, there must be a possibility of failure. This fear can motivate people to work harder.
If you’re already doubting if you can risk take; A risk is taking a challenging class in an area that is not your strong suit. For example,chemistry and physics were not most of us piece of cake. We oftenly considered ourselves to be a liberal arts students but Instead we decided to take one of them as one of our sciences in senior years of high school.We had to invest a lot more personal effort to be successful in that class.It was gratifying in the end,we had to prove to ourselves that we can do difficult things. The class forced us to be more resourceful than we normally would be.
Taking risks puts you in a situation where you can develop new skills and find new resources you would not have done otherwise. In addition, it teaches your mind to think and analyse material in a different way. It adds more exposure to what and how to learn.
Participating in a group discussion or solving a problem in front of the class I do not praise the result but praise the effort behind the action. I often link this positive praise with the word ‘courageous’ or ‘risk-taker’.
For both lecturers and students, the role of risk-taker and the nurturing of these skills is important to continued success. Risk-taking is something that students can take away with them, far beyond passing exams; it gives students something far more valuable and long lasting.
Annie Thoughts 