There is no such thing as failure...

[Famine]

Not according to PAT (Professional Association of Teachers - one of our three main teachers' unions).

No, failure is demoralising to children. Instead it should be seen as "deferred success".


No, I'm not making this up.

Discuss:

 

[Swift]

Ok, I'm not sure how you feel about it Famine. But this train of thought disgusts me. Now, if you try then you haven't really failed, assuming you gave it an honest effort. But you CAN be wrong or come short. There are lessons to be learned in losing or failure that can only come from losing or failure.

This is a marvelous way to teach our children that they are always right and that the world owes them something just for "giving it a shot".

"Don't I at least get a little credit for trying?" or "Well, I was almost right. Can't I get something for that?" Are phrases that young people say far too often. In the real world, you're right or you're not. Why should we teach our children differently then what they are going to experience once they "leave the nest"?

 

[Famine]

Well, if you couldn't guess my opinion from the tone of the post, here's a single smiley which should clear it up:

 

[TheCracker]

Not according to PAT (Professional Association of Teachers - one of our three main teachers' unions).

No, failure is demoralising to children. Instead it should be seen as "deferred success".


No, I'm not making this up.

Discuss:

I thought this was a 'JohnBM01' thread when i first saw it


like good and bad, success needs to have failure

 

[sukerkin]

I seem to be running into posts here and there today which highlight to me that our society is doomed .

The oft-referred-to "youth of today" do, taken en masse, fail to impress in any way. They are ill-disciplined, un-educated and filled, so it seems, with an unshakeable opinion of their own self worth. I know that this is a sentiment that has been expressed throughout the ages but, in todays environment, it really does seem that the Playstation Generation stands out in it's mediocrity .

I've watched the quality of graduates decline steadily for twenty-odd years but it has accelerated recently with the drive to get anyone through university who is not clinically dead and give them a piece of paper that says "Degree" on it. It would seem that actually having intelligence and determination is not a requirement any longer.

So I'm not at all surprised that we have the ultimate expression of the poverty of expectations in education that Famines dug up above. "Deferred Success" ... pshaw!

I mean no direct insult to those who find themselves working in the Service Industries because they can't get work anywhere else but we're heading for a nation full of either doley scroungers, CHAV's or "You want fries with that?" servitor drones.

 

[VT]

All they're going to do with that deferred success thing is screw the children over when they hit the real world and have no clue what to do because they've been fired because they failed.

What happened to the days where if you did something wrong you did something wrong?

edit:

I mean when something bad happens you don't get a second go at it. What if one of those "deferred success" people is an air traffic controller and lets two planes collide somehow. "Oh I tried my hardest, maybe I'll get it right next time."

 

[Danoff]

Failure = Didn't get the job done.

It doesn't matter how much effort was put into it. If you don't get the job done you fail. Failing is part of life. That leads many people to believe that it is OK and normal to fail and that kids should not take it too seriously. While it is normal to fail, it is not OK and should be taken seriously. Children need to understand failure rather than be sheltered from it.

Incidently, our society also tries to protect adults from their own failure by taking money from the successful and giving it to the unsuccessful. This is deemed as more equitable, when in fact it's more of the same nonsense.

People fail. Some more severely than others. Get over it.

 

[Flerbizky]

If you don't get the job done you fail. Failing is part of life

And now they're taking this lesson away from kids... You may not have finished the job, but you gave it a shot so you semi-made it.. Wrong.. You F'd up - Live with it and learn from it...

 

[Silverzone]

I think that taking Failure away from kids wouldn't be a good idea. When Im at school, and say I fail a math test. If It was "Failed" I'd know exactly what it meant, and I would work to improve. If it was "deferred success" I would probably think that I can do badly, and still be sucessful... Makes no sense at all

 

[Duke]

My wife, who is a technical writer/publisher, brought home a serious article given to her as a joke by one of the scientists with whom she works. In this article, a teacher was quite seriously saying that all teachers should switch from grading with red pens to something "less accusatory" like purple in order to protect their students' self-images. The red pens apparently mean "you screwed up" and this is not the message she wants to send to her kids.

Frankly, they can lower their standards all they want - it'll just make my kids look better in the college/job markets in a few years.

 

[FoolKiller]

Ny wife, who is a technical writer/publisher, brought home a serious article given to her as a joke by one of the scientists with whom she works. In this article, a teacher was quite seriously saying that all teachers should switch from grading with red pens to something "less accusatory" like purple in order to protect their students' self-images. The red pens apparently mean "you screwed up" and this is not the message she wants to send to her kids.

Frankly, they can lwoer their standards all they want - it'll just make my kids look better in the college/job markets in a few years.

The same people also quit using an F as a grade and switched to an E because everyone knew that F stood for failure.

I wish someone would have explained to my college accounting professor that I didn't fail, I just deferred my success with alcohol, parties, and video games.

 

[Famine]

Ny wife, who is a technical writer/publisher, brought home a serious article given to her as a joke by one of the scientists with whom she works. In this article, a teacher was quite seriously saying that all teachers should switch from grading with red pens to something "less accusatory" like purple in order to protect their students' self-images. The red pens apparently mean "you screwed up" and this is not the message she wants to send to her kids.

The same thing - or something similar - made its way round here a few years ago.

For the most part these things are comedy diversions, to make you shake your head and laugh, which never come to fruition. But PAT is the second largest teaching union and this is being discussed at their AGM...

As I've said elsewhere, PAT are a "collection of onanism hobbyists".

Frankly, they can lwoer their standards all they want - it'll just make my kids look better in the college/job markets in a few years.

Bwa-ha!

*runs like hell*

 

[Duke]

Bwa-ha!

*runs like hell*

Yeah, and I said "Ny wife", too... but I already fixed them before I read your quotation, so there -

 

[Famine]

Deferred success in action

Imagine a driving test... Yeesh.


The phrase is not the worst part. The worst part is what they plan to do with it. A deferred success in an exam is, basically, a fail. But you're allowed to go back and redo the bits you got wrong later on in order to make up your marks, rather than doing the whole exam again (or an entirely new one)...

A deferred success in your driving test? Just retry the bits you got wrong.

A deferred success in your open heart surgery? Just exhume the patient and redo the bits that killed them...

 

[Sage]

My wife, who is a technical writer/publisher, brought home a serious article given to her as a joke by one of the scientists with whom she works. In this article, a teacher was quite seriously saying that all teachers should switch from grading with red pens to something "less accusatory" like purple in order to protect their students' self-images. The red pens apparently mean "you screwed up" and this is not the message she wants to send to her kids.

My eight-grade history teacher heard about that, and thought it was so funny that he started using more red ink when correcting our tests, and whenever he started to write on the whiteboard with a red marker, he'd go, "Oh wait, I can't use this – I'll hurt your feelings."

These people are damn failures themselves for ever coming up with this stupid idea.

 

[Swift]

Deferred success in action

A deferred success in your open heart surgery? Just exhume the patient and redo the bits that killed them...

I'm sure they didn't take it to that level, but that is EXACTLY what they are trying to convince others of.

 

[Ev0]

I know it's already been said, but I have to say it...

If you can't deal with failure (at least on an occasional basis), you're going to fail at life. We can't always succed, so we must learn to deal with failure. This new initiative is absolutely asinine.

 

[smellysocks12]

Children should be allowed to make mistakes, but they should realize that they made a mistake and should do it differently next time. If your attitude is too critical towards a child, they will be afraid to try anything new because they know doing something wrong will lead to criticism or punishment again (or whatever).

Kids should be encouraged to try something new, but when they do something wrong someone should make them aware of that so they learn how to do it right next time.

 

[Hell Raiser]

This is what they call .....................................DUMB-ING UP THE MASSES

 

[FoolKiller]

When I was in middle school the high school in my district started a remedial history course for students that failed the regualr history course. It only lasted one year because the honor students began protesting by showing that giving a student who failed a second chance to make up the grade skewed the GPA rankings and that it could actually mean that some honors students who made a B in their history class would be ranked below the kids who failed and then made an A in the remedial course. Fortunatley the school officials were smart enough to see the light and eliminate the course before I reached high school.

An idea like this can actually harm those who are very succesful. Imagine losing an academic scholarship to the guy who had "deferred success" because you had immediate success that wasn't perfect.

 

[blargonator]

im not going to lie, im the farthest person in my school from having a good grade point average, i could care less if they called failure "deferred sucess" it still sucks because you know you failed. the problem i have is my school does not offer things i see useful, i could care less about taking acting classes or learning how to make some stupid paper craft.
i won't use those things in the so called "real world" i don't plan on being massively sucessful because that is not my main goal in life, actually enjoying living is my main goal.

there is nothing you can do to replace the word failure, it will always mean the same thing even if you change the words.

 

[Swift]

i won't use those things in the so called "real world" i don't plan on being massively sucessful because that is not my main goal in life, actually enjoying living is my main goal.

there is nothing you can do to replace the word failure, it will always mean the same thing even if you change the words.

Well, it's hard to enjoy life with little to no money.

As far as faliure goes, you've accepted the difference between faliure and success. And that's good. However, if a 1st grader is indoctrinated with this falsehood, it would be tragic by the time they were in high school.

 

[smellysocks12]

im not going to lie, im the farthest person in my school from having a good grade point average, i could care less if they called failure "deferred sucess" it still sucks because you know you failed. the problem i have is my school does not offer things i see useful, i could care less about taking acting classes or learning how to make some stupid paper craft.
i won't use those things in the so called "real world" i don't plan on being massively sucessful because that is not my main goal in life, actually enjoying living is my main goal.

there is nothing you can do to replace the word failure, it will always mean the same thing even if you change the words.

There is a point in those acting classes. Not learning how to act, but getting you that piece of paper so you can eventually get a good job. Just because you're not interested in certain classes is no excuse not to make sure you get a good education.

 

[PS]

Society is becomming more and more polite and forgiving every day, while at the same time more and more filled with petty crime and annoying kids. It's just stupid now, even 5 years ago it was much better.

Ever notice how all these thousands of mental "diseases" are just popping up out of nowhere in the past 10 years? It's bloody stupid.

 

[smellysocks12]

That's called research. Those mental diseases already existed but people didn't have a name for it. Then again... America IS going haywire on the Dr. Phil type of ****. They have dumb methods and treatment programs for even the slightest problems which causes that nobody even takes the people with real problems seriously.

 

[ledhed]

if I have a deferred failure thing can I still get paid ?

 

[PS]

That's called research. Those mental diseases already existed but people didn't have a name for it.

Not neccesarily. Most of these "problems" occuring in teens and children, probably also occurred in teens and children 50 years ago. Only this time, the parents are whining and complaining so much about it, that doctors feel the need to say "do this, do that, it'll fix the problem". Eventually it got so bad that they just started saying "Here, your son/daughter has this disease called [insert random name of mental condition never before heard of], and give them this drug". Now, "diseases" are coming out of the wordwork and all of a sudden 20% of north america has a mental problem.

Then again... America IS going haywire on the Dr. Phil type of ****. They have dumb methods and treatment programs for even the slightest problems which causes that nobody even takes the people with real problems seriously.

Exactly.

 

[sukerkin]

The 'problems' in humans growing to maturity have always been there.

What's causing the 'problem' now is that parents are not given the support they need to make sure that their children grow up as 'socialised' adults.

I know for certain that if the laws prevelent now on how children could be treated existed when I was growing up then I would either be in prison or coping with some other highly unsalubrious fate.

Why?

Because I was a wilful, obnoxious, aggressive and violent little so-and-so who always thought he was right and it took my father roughly fifteen years to discipline that anti-social behaviour out of me.

I don't think a day went by without me having to get a good hiding for something and, with the honesty of years, I pretty much reckon I deserved most of them (apart from the ones where my sisters dropped me 'in it' for something they did !).

So, given that children who're like I was back in the sixties are still being born today and parents are not legally permitted to punish them effectively, what's the general consensus on how society's going to be in ... oh, hang on, we've reaped the crop of twenty to thirty years of liberalism already with young 'adults' who think that laws don't apply to them and they can do as they wish ...

So altho' the witterings of what I term "Bleeding hearts and artists" might give rise to some imbecilic concepts that will exacerbate the perennial problem of 'teens who think they know better than their elders, that's not really the issue.

Apologies for the heavy handed veering of thread topic there - bet you can't guess it's something I feel strongly about .

As a post script and something that may be worth a thread in it's own right, I do believe that there will be a back-lash at some point and that fairly draconian and right-wing legislation will come into curb the real, de-stabalising, social anarchy that's burgeoning under our feet. The problem is that, given past records on such matters, it will be too late and far too severe and we could end up with a traumatised generation which is worse in some ways than what we've got now.

 

[Duke]

if I have a deferred failure thing can I still get paid ?

That's called "welfare". You can think of it as a "deferred job".

 

[PS]

That's called "welfare". You can think of it as a "deferred job".

Or working for the government.