Butts In the Seats: This Facebook post about the Failure Award Scholarship immediately caught my eye this morning. Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is looking for creative Colorado seniors to apply to their Failure Award Scholarship program. Winners will join past failures awarded the $20,000 scholarship.
6 comments:
This Failure Award Scholarship is a really fascinating concept. Throughout our lives, but especially at school, we are constantly told that failure means you’re growing and is a good thing but rarely are things actually seen in this way. While people may tell us that failure is ok or even good, it never feels like it and teachers don’t usually accept it. A failed project isn’t something that can be turned in and this is especially true in theater. A failed work of theater is not meant to be seen, much less celebrated, by anyone. Because of this, we can become afraid of failure. We become scared to take risks, create art that is new and groundbreaking, and not follow a path. This award that honors failure and people taking those risks and creating new projects even though they may never work is an amazing way to change that. This is a great way to get upcoming artists to be unafraid to create new work.
I adore weird scholarships. So many scholarship essays ask for the same thing over and over again in slightly different ways which can get so boring. In so many scholarships you have to be the best at what you do which can make it hard to find categories that you fit into as well as actually be able to win the scholarship itself. This idea ensures that for the most part, there is a level playing field and all the students need to do is be passionate about what they’re submitting and not necessarily if the product itself is actually good. On top of all of that, it's twenty fricken grand which is HUGE. To me, that would be an absolutely life changing amount of money to get for school. I would love to see more scholarships that are focused on learning than perfection and I think that this scholarship does exactly that.
This is a great idea for a scholarship. Almost every scholarship out there is centered around academic or otherwise intellectual success, but that’s not all that’s needed to have a successful career! It can be really hard to learn soft skills in grade school, which only pushes purely academic content. Nobody really teaches you how to put yourself out there and/or take failure, so I think we begin to believe that failure is unacceptable. Just this scholarship alone is enough to change that. The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver was smart to post the scholarship just now, only 2 or 3 months away from graduation. Of course, if they didn’t, people would probably engineer spectacular failures (figuratively or literally), and they still might. But by this time, a lot of high school students are probably going through a bit of failure at this time – I know I was when I was a senior.
I’m not sure why I thought that this wouldn’t necessarily be art related, but I love the concept of this scholarship. I feel like during the college admissions process individuals are so focused on looking perfect on paper, a scholarship like this is such a great reminder that no one is perfect, and that that’s okay. Our industry specifically goes through so many versions of the thing before it becomes the thing, sometimes we are dead wrong – teaching this is so powerful and useful. It seems as though individuals place so much pressure on themselves for things to be perfect on the first try; but a scholarship like this that wants you to document, share, and discuss those early versions or “failures” can also get individuals used to sharing those things. I hope that this scholarship is able to gain more traction and encourage young artists to be okay with the process of changing and adapting to “failures.”
I ADORE this concept! Being a high school senior just a year ago, I remember being so scared of the idea of failure. I even wrote my college essay on my experience with failure and perfection, and the challenges with comparison and impression. This scholarships gives students the opportunity to show all parts of a process, with the idea of failure and growth in mind. This is something I would have absolutely applied for if I knew it existed last year, because as creatives, we try new inspiring projects and fail all the time! I would have never thought I could do what I was already doing but this with the possible reward of getting paid, and using the money to go do it at an institution for higher education! I remember applying to countless scholarships last year, and this one would have absolutely made my list.
I love the idea of recognizing the necessity of a growth mindset. When young learners are diagnosed as “gifted students,” as myself and many others in my class can tell you, they develop an intense need to prove themselves intelligent, accomplished, and special, to the detriment of their own mental health. However, being told that you’re good at something can often have a paralyzing effect: if you try something and you’re not immediately good at it, you start to feel like an imposter; a failure. Unfortunately, not being good at things is a necessary first step. If everyone was good at everything, then what would be the point? Failure is necessary for growth, and growth is always possible. I think a lot of students understand that intellectually, but are so worried about the consequences of their failures or about what others will think about them that they still try to stay within their comfort zone. Even though we are encouraged to try things and fail, talk is cheap, and the truth is our failures often take us out of the running for scholarships or awards. I love that this award is process-based: it makes those failures necessary in order to reap a possible win. It minimizes the paralyzing effect, because it is actually giving students a safe place to try crazy ideas, no matter the consequences.
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