Welcoming Risk-Taking into Your Classroom: What You Need to Know

In my previous posts, we discussed how important it is to let your students take risks in the classroom and how to make sure your classroom is a safe environment for risk-taking.

This post discusses a few principles you can use in your classroom to make sure you are allowing your students to take risks.

Two-Way Conversations vs. One-Sided Directions

Too often, we tell our students exactly what they should do and how to do it. We do this for their benefit, to help them make the best decision, or to stay safe. However, there is a better way to teach our students how to make the best decision.

Imagine that one of your students is balancing on a log during recess. You see that there is a thorn bush on one side of the log. Your instinct is to tell your student to get off the log so that they don’t fall onto the thorns and get hurt. However, this does not facilitate risk-taking. It also ignores everything we learned about why we should let our students take risks – like learning to self-regulate and overcome fear.

Instead, in a situation like this, consider having a conversation with your student about what they’re doing. Sometimes a simple question such as, “What’s your plan right now?” is enough to get your student to think through what they’re doing and make a better decision on their own. It might also give your student the opportunity to tell you exactly what their plan is. Maybe they saw the thorn bush and will respond with, “I see the thorns. I’ll lean toward the grass if I fall.” They’ve already assessed the risks and made an informed decision. This is exactly what you’re looking for!

Other times, your student may not have been so thoughtful with their decision. In this case, a more pointed question may be helpful. Something like, “What will happen if you fall?” or “What do you see on the ground next to you?” Instead of telling your student what to do, this conversation-opener gives them the opportunity to figure out the best course of action on their own. They may choose to get down or continue playing while becoming a little more aware of their surroundings. When you ask them a question instead of telling them what to do, it will be their choice and they will be aware of the risks they’re taking. Instead of making the decision for them (and not teaching them anything in the process), you teach them a valuable skill and give them more independence by allowing them to make their own decision.

Telling a child to stop because there is a risk involved is not the answer. We all take risks in our lives and learning how to do this well is more helpful than avoiding risks altogether or relying on someone (like a teacher or parent) to do risk analysis for you your whole life. Teach your students to take risks responsibly.

Work with Your Students, Not for Them

As healthy as it is for development, taking risks and failing can be hard for your students. While your students should learn these skills, they shouldn’t do it alone.

Work alongside your students as they take risks. Scaffold risk-taking just as you would any other skill. Provide a safety net for your students and be there to encourage them when they fail.

This doesn’t mean that you should take the risks upon yourself so that your students can make risky decisions without having to deal with the consequences. Your students do need to experience genuine risk – and even failure – for themselves. However, it is appropriate (and best for your students) if you are there for your students to make sure they don’t do anything dangerous and to keep them from getting overwhelmed.

Risk-taking and dealing with failure is a learned skill. Treat it as such by giving your students the same support as you would when they learn how to write an essay or long division. As your students become more comfortable with risk-taking and learn how to take risks appropriately, you can start letting them take risks more and more independently.

You must understand that you may be one of the first people in your students’ lives that have allowed them to make decisions on their own, take risks, and flirt with failure. I know I didn’t learn this skill until early adulthood. It does not matter how old your students are: some of your students will still need a lot of hand-holding before they can take risks on their own without feeling overwhelmed. Determine how much support of your students needs and work with them to learn how to take risks appropriately without making the decisions for them.

Model Risk-Taking

Your students may feel like the adults in their lives have everything together and don’t experience the same things they do, especially when it comes to taking risks and failing. Your students may hesitate to learn how to take risks because they think they’ll magically have this skill when they become an adult. It is your job to show your students that this is not the case.

You can do this by being open about the mistakes you make in the classroom. Let your students see when you fail so that they understand that failure is a part of life.

Not only should you be open about your mistakes and failures, but you should model how to deal with these things with grace. Show your students how a mistake is not the end of the world. Admit your mistake and move on.

Showing your students that you make mistakes too – and then how to deal with those mistakes – will help your students feel like taking risks is not so scary after all.

Allow Retakes and Redos

Another way to help your students learn to take risks is to give them second chances, retakes, and redos. One of the reasons high-stakes testing feels so overwhelming is that you only get one shot at it. Instead of making your assignments overwhelming for the same reason, give your students the opportunity to redo some of their assignments so that taking risks is less overwhelming.

While this strategy doesn’t facilitate risk-taking by giving students more opportunities to take risks, it does help your students feel more comfortable making mistakes by lowering the stakes of the risks involved.

Discuss What Was Learned

Sometimes taking a risk will be rewarded. Other times, risk-taking will result in failure. While failure is expected to happen every once in a while, it can be a lot to handle as a child.

Help your students see the value in failure by helping them learn from their mistakes.

When your students take a chance and miss, make sure they learn something from the experience. Let them know that failure is a part of the process. This way, failure can become a learning opportunity rather than an undesirable end.

Let Them Struggle

It can be difficult to stand back and watch as your students take risks, become overwhelmed, and fail; but it is so vital to their personal growth.

Last summer, I was with my sister and her son at the park. He was almost 4 at the time. The playground was not built for a 4-year-old, and there were several other children that were much bigger and more confident than my nephew.

At one point, my nephew was trying to climb up one of the playground ladders. It was too big for him, so he was taking his time and going slowly. The other children wanted to use the same ladder and were too impatient to wait for my nephew to take his time – so they climbed right over him!

I was furious and so close to walking over to these children and calling them out on what they did. (I didn’t see any adult supervision nearby.) Instead, I stayed back and watched.

My sweet, sensitive nephew was obviously uncomfortable with these bigger kids climbing over him, but he handled it like a champ. Not only that, but he found the courage to go down the giant slide on his own several times.

It was so rewarding to watch him as he gained confidence and pushed himself out of his comfort zone to take these risks. It was so gratifying to see him be rewarded for the risks he took and become comfortable on the giant playground on his own.

If I had stepped in and “saved” him from the big kids and from taking a risk on the big slide – if I had saved him from struggling – I may have stunted his growth. However, I was able to stand back and watch. I was close enough to step in if things got to be too much, but I was far enough away to give him enough space to take risks and grow on his own.

As hard as it may be, this is how we need to respond to our students. Let them struggle, take risks, and possibly fail, but be close enough to rescue them if they can’t handle it anymore.