Mistakes Help Our Brains Grow!

In Lower School, the Math curriculum began with a lesson that goes far beyond numbers: Mistakes help our brains grow.

Through stories, movement, and hands-on exploration, students learn that getting something wrong isn’t something to avoid. It’s part of the learning process.

In one classroom activity, students watch determined ducklings try again and again to make their way up a set of stairs, modeling what it looks like to keep trying even when something doesn’t work the first time.

Then, students brought that idea to life. Holding a string throughout the classroom, they created pathways representing the connections, or synapses, in our brains. As we make mistakes, try new strategies, and keep going, our brains build and strengthen these connections.

It’s a powerful reminder that in math, the struggle isn’t a detour from learning. It is learning!