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Second-Graders’ 3D Creations Teach Learning Through Failure

Second grade art work

Longtime Lower School art teacher Kandise Hayes explains how a simple lesson helps develop grit and perseverance in her students.

Kandise HayesLower School Art Teacher

Second-grade students created ‘Delicious Designs’ by using lines and shapes to produce three-dimensional forms  to ‘trick the eye.’ Embracing their mistakes by unlocking new ways of working their art, I reminded them that learning from failure brings the sweetness of life to fruition. As our artists worked, we shared this American painter’s words: 'The nerve of failure I think is paramount. Learning by mistakes, modifying, reconstituting, reorganizing.'  —Wayne Thiebaud, American painter"