After a close reading of the book (reading till date) and reflecting on headings like Active Priors, Emotions in the Brain and The Emotional Spectrum (Kapur, pp. 133–134), I was inspired to design my own classroom experiment with Class 4B while teaching English grammar and vocabulary, specifically prefixes.
The first sparks came quickly with words like unhappy, uncommon, unable, and soon after with dishonest. Yet, to my dismay, the momentum stalled. The students fell back into a small comfort zone of familiar words, unwilling to risk experimenting beyond what they already knew. At that moment, I felt the very failure Manu Kapur writes about: a class reluctant to stretch itself.
Instead of supplying them with ready-made enlisted words, I decided to embrace this moment of failure as productive. I framed scaffolding prompts around what touched them most—their families, their choices, their little worlds. I asked them to reflect:
-
Who usually helps you pack your school bag? And who helps you to do the opposite when you reach home?
-
When your father comes from the market carrying heavy bags, what do you do to make them lighter?
-
Who makes the wisest decisions at home? Have you ever made a decision? Was it wise?
-
In your bedroom, what things do you find really necessary for you every day? And what about the things that are not?
-
Do you feel yourself lucky or fortunate in your family?
I sent them home with these emotionally loaded questions, imagining the rich discussions they would carry to their dining tables.
The next day, the classroom transformed. Students came brimming with stories, impatient to unfold them. Anvika called herself the “luckiest” because she is her papa’s “cutest girl.” Arsh narrated how his dog had scratched him, so he was feeling a little “unwell” that day. Trying to comfort him, I said, “Oh dear, that was really unpleasant for you and totally unexpected as well.” But he innocently defended, “Ma’am, he didn’t do it unintentionally (उसने यह जानबूझकर नहीं किया).” My heart swelled—my student had come up with a new word far beyond my expectations. Sanskriti identified three things in her study room that were “unnecessary.” Dhairya shared an “unwise” choice that left him upset. Aryaman, who is still uncertain about making new friends in the hostel, admitted softly, “I am unhappy because I miss my mother.”
The words emerged not as abstract linguistic units but as lived expressions—charged with emotions, shaped by family bonds, and coloured by self-reflection. That day, my otherwise reticent students spoke freely, little bothered about being right or wrong. As I gently repeated their words, listing them on the greenboard—unintentionally, unnecessary, unwise, unfair, unpack, unload, unhappy, unfortunate—the list grew organically out of their own narratives. The more emotionally invested they were, the more vivid and lasting their learning became.
Thus, my small classroom experiment found its validation in Manu Kapur’s thesis: the human brain is deeply attuned to emotional stimuli, and learning anchored in emotions is retained with greater clarity and energy. The failure to recall “prefix words” the previous day was not a defeat, but a preparation—an active struggle—that set the stage for richer, more meaningful learning the next day.
In essence, Productive Failure reminded me that, as a teacher, my task is not to eliminate struggle, but to design it carefully—holding my students in a space where their initial failures ripen into productive learning opportunities.
