Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

[MotherOfGizmo]

Tue Jul 19,12:39 PM ET



LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralising pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.



http://www.davesdaily.com/out.php?id...ritain_failure

[Piasabird]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

[jroche5998]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

This is so ridiculous. Life is tough. If we coddle our children constantly, guess what will happen when they face a real challenge in life? FAIL!!!!!!

This just irks me.

[MotherOfGizmo]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

What I wonder is how many times do you get to "defer success" before you finally "fail"?

[Luna Rossa]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

More politically correct BS. *sigh*

IMO not only does this hurt the ones they're trying to protect by letting them think its ok to FAIL, but it hurts the ones who would ordinarily excel.

My daughter asked me a couple years ago why the winners got the same "PARTICIPATION" ribbon as the ones who came in last place. What was the point, she wondered, of giving your all if the lazies ended up with the same prize anyhow?

[Bugaboo]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

That is pretty lame. If you fail you fail...the underlying fact is there no matter what word you use. Maybe the teachers are more for it since they wouldn't have to say "X amount of students failed my class." I just hope they keep the idea to themselves and the teachers over here don't get the same idea. The best teacher I ever had was the one who didn't sugar coat anything, he was straight forward and brutally honest. My husband and I still talk of him fondly. I've thought about sending him a card (he's retired now) telling him what a positive impact he had on my life.

[cruise]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

JROCHE5998.i AGREE WITH YOU TOTALLY, LET THE KIDS EXPERIENCE LIFES UPS AND DOWNS. We GOT THROUGH IT JUST FINE I WORKED IN A SCHOOL FOR TWO YEARAS AS A MONITOR AND NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO SAY ANYTHING TO A STUDENT ABOUT HIS OR HER ATTITUDE,or NASTY LANGUAGE UNLESS YOU PULLED THEM ASIDE SO THEY WOULD NOT GET EMBARASSED, COME ON NOW LETS GET REAL !!

[Kisseslikepearls]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

Geez, I thought it was already pretty bad....and not to give even MORE reason to laugh at Florida, but it reminds me of the school board here.

First, they say you need to know this and this to pass high school, if not, you don't graduate.

Then, they decide that too many kids are failing, so they lower the standards.

Then they decide you don't have to pass the reading part.....

Ok, so judging by this....we're not only loweing our standard of what kids need to know, but we're eliminating the possibiling of failing??? And at the same time we're trying to figure out how kids in college can't read?

Gee, I wonder. I complained all through the 4 years of IB because of how much more work I had to do than my siblings. Now I'm thinking that I was the lucky one.....

Michelle

[Peytonn]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

I'm so sick of this politically correct bull....

same kind of thing when in little league.. there are no LOSERS.... well what idiot thought that up?

when I was a little kid... Mama taught us that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but the fun is in playing the game again and getting better... (I'm the oldest of 5 girls)... don't even THINK about trying to tell me there's no loser.....

or that people don't fail...

duh.....

that's why kids start believing the world owes them something and they deserve the same grades etc. as the kids who work their butts off to learn and succeed....

I teach... and believe me... I have kids in 8th grade reading on 4th grade level with average IQ's... because they have YET to believe that learning at some point involves a little effort on THEIR part!

(steps down off soap box now)

[Desertthorn]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

Wow, do I have to disagree with the majority AGAIN.
You label a child as a failure and they will believe it, they will live it and they will be it.
What if their failure is due to an inadequate school system, regardless of what our President in the US saids, Children are being left behind, way behind and its not their fault. Read the book Savage Inequities and it will make your stomach turn.
What if the failure is due to mild retardation, or dyslexia or even coming from a non-English speaking home.
What if the failure is due to immaturity.
Are you really willing to brand this kids with a big scarlet letter F.
I applaud the UK school system and hope that more look at what they area doing and start looking for positive reimforcement instead of negative terms.

[Bugaboo]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

I understand where you're coming from but the child themself is not being labeled a failure. If someone fails a class then someone needs to step in and find out why. Making it so everybody is in the same boat can make it even harder to spot the kids who need help. My oldest son has Aspergers Disorder, and while I've had a lot of teachers who want to give him special allowances I don't want them to. In 7 more years he'll be an adult and will have to manage in an adult world. I want him to be ready for the harshness of reality...if that makes sense. That may make me sound mean but I'm actually a very loving Mom. I don't call my children names or anything like that but I don't sugar coat things either.

[Iapetus999]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

I have had deferred success in understanding why people think this is a good idea. I think they are having deferred success in realizing that sometimes people really have deferred success. Why not give everyone an 'A'? I mean they showed up on time (50% of the time) and paid attention (when not hitting other students). Their homework was excellent (the 20% of the time they bothered to scribble meaningless gibberish on it).
They hardly ever knived the teacher or other students. Their comprehension of over a hundred written words is remarkable!
This is not deferred success, this is the crowning acheivement of our education system. Imagine if everyone got a perfect record. We'd all be perfect people!

Frankly if it were up to me I'd defer success on a lot more kids than they do now. Our schools are deferring success to motivate and inspire kids and properly teach them what they need to succeed in the real world. Meanwhile we are beginning to import/use more and more workers from 3rd world countries where the actually give a damn about educating kids. And it's not the "no child left behind" children that are hurt by this. Like someone's really going to defer success a mentally challenged kid. It's the "gifted" kids that get shafted but not rewarding their success and encouraging them to grow.
Do you really want a future president of the US to be some kid that was deferred success all the way thru a law degree or rather some talented kid that got a great start and was nurtured and came to have a great intellect because he was challenged?

Anyways I could go on for days about this topic. It's a shame that kids with lesser abilities get lesser grades but that's life and evening things out doesn't help them as much as it hurts the talented ones.
Turning a 'B' student into an 'A' student doesn't help them. Getting a 'B' student to earn an 'A' does. Same with getting an 'F' student up to a 'C' or 'D' through hard work and working thru their issues.
If a kid is challenged...that's what it means. They are challenged. The ones who overcome these challenges are the ones who grow the most and can become the most effective adults.
As anyone who was a freshmen in college knows...things change. Where I would always get A's in HS, suddenly on my first college test I got a 40. Out of 100. That's not deferred success...it's no success. I've never gotten anything like that in my life. It didn't take long to adjust to the amount of work needed in a college course and I wound up getting an 'A' in the course. If you challenge, motivate and reward kids they will grow. The challenge may be in the form of an 'F'. Find a way to motivate that kid, and pretty soon he'll be rewarded with something better.

[Iapetus999]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

Thomas Edison (who was almost completely deaf since early childhood) deferred success 10,000 times before figuring out how to make a light bulb.

Who could ever imagine where we might be today if Thomas Edison had not persevered after ten thousand failures? It’s OK to fail. From every failure comes the seed of an even greater possible success. Without failure, we can never grow to our full potential.

http://www.usdreams.com/Edison16.html

[Desertthorn]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

But maybe Tomas Edisons wasn't labeled as a failure as a small child. Maybe alll his little success' were applauded, regardless of what his peers did.
I

[Iapetus999]

Re: Teaching group to consider banning word "fail"

But maybe Tomas Edisons wasn't labeled as a failure as a small child. Maybe alll his little success' were applauded, regardless of what his peers did.

From the same article:

He attended school for only three months where the teacher labeled him a slow learner

I guess he was slow....10,000 tries to get it right???

Coating failure with a fancy name does nothing to help these kids...it only makes it worse by sweeping their deficiencies under the rug. Every kid will have failures and every kid will have successes. Some kids more than others. It's the responsibility of the parents and educators of these kids to deal with the failure and figure out how to turn it around.
If they don't do their jobs then they doom the kids to a lifetime of deferred success.