How do you teach students to see failure as a learning tool?

By teaching them to indeed try your utmost best, and if it fails LEARN from it, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP, get up analyze what can be done different next time to succeed .

One thing that makes art important is how we can learn what others think and know and feel, and how they confront life.

Specific to this question, I love the song Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take a deep breath and start all over again.

Hard to do since society shuns losers.

We already do that. An award winning science project can demonstrate why a hypothesis was false.

The only true failure is failure to try.

By being constructive about it instead of increasing the stress about it

WOW! Super excellent answer there @Zaku !!

@Zaku I don’t get it?

The whole system needs to be changed. Constant testing, especially in elementary school, is not a good tool. Being penalized for not doing well on a particular test is not helpful either. There should be standards that have to be met for graduating, and students should be allowed to reach these standards at different rates. If you do not do well on a test, it simply means you have not yet met the standard. The reward for meeting a standard early is that you get to learn advanced material.

With this type of setup, there is no shame attached to failing at any intermediate point. Students should be encouraged to take tests in order to determine where they need to concentrate their efforts, which is beneficial to both student and teacher.

Let them fail occasionally. Stop giving out “participant” trophies. Teach them to learn from their failures and show them that it isn’t the end of the world.

@RedDeerGuy1 Examples:

being constructive about failure:
It looks like we’ve discovered some specific things you haven’t learned yet. Oh good, let’s discuss what happened that there are these gaps in the learning, so we know what we can focus on to improve your learning and our teaching.

increasing the stress about failure:
Telling students that if they fail, there will be dire consequences.
Telling students they were bad for failing.
Adding remarks to add stress to worry about failing, for instance about their future prosperity and happiness, or about the opinions of them by their teachers, parents and peers if they fail.
Blaming and shaming the students.
Language: evaluating students, discipline, work harder
Comparing the performance of students to each other and saying those with high marks are good students and those with low marks are bad students.
etc.

@seawulf575 said something very important, “Teach them to learn from their failures…”

Ask a student what went well and what do they need to do differently next time. From that, help them build a constructive plan to move toward success.

Do they still flunk kids in schools?

I failed to learn enough in the second grade to pass. They flunked me. It was exactly what I needed. A reality check that has helped all my life. I managed to earn a BA and had a successful 38 year long career.