Making Connection Assignments

Encourage Failure? 

While listening to Ken Robinson's speech on how to "escape the death valley of education", he brought up many points which I agreed with and supported. One of which was to put emphasis on the minds and mental wellbeing of the children before standardized testing and quotas. He states that children are natural learners and are only stifled by the current western education system of today. He also said that Children as such good learners because they do not fear failure as much as older children, teenagers or adults do. That without this fear of failure, they are open to try many things, and will not be too discouraged if they do not accomplish what they hoped. While i agree with this to a degree however, I'm not sure this can be applied to the teens and adults of today. When people get older, more responsibility is placed upon them than their care free days of childhood. Failure has higher risks and stakes for them than they do for children, forcing them to not take as many chances with their abilities and tasks as children do. But if this fear of failure is so bad for creativity, how can adults and teenagers grow or regain their ability to be creative and follow their passions?