Afraid to Fail…

When our children are infants, and their eyes start to follow the mobile hanging over their crib, we are thrilled. Never was there a child so smart.

When they graduate from a bottle to a sippy cup, we never compare their progress to their siblings. We are just happy for their growing independence.

When they move from crawling to cruising to attempting their first steps, and they fall, we laugh. Because we laugh, so do they; and they are not afraid to try again.

And when they take their first steps, we grab our phones to record every second, smile and laugh, clap our hands in delight and pride. And our small child knows that he or she has done something amazing.

I could go on, but you get the idea. We let our young children move at their own pace, try new things. We give them confidence to try until they get it right. The steps in between are steps. Not failures. Progress and success to be celebrated.

Then they start school. At first, it is all about curiosity, creativity, discovery, trying and learning new and wonderful things. But, by the time our children are in middle school, we – parents, teachers, school administrators, state and federal officials, colleges and other post-secondary organizations – we are all afraid to fail.

Because we are afraid to fail, we enter a well-intentioned but flawed complicity of grade and GPA inflation, short cut credit recovery programs, no zero policies, absenteeism and rude behavior with no consequences, and eventually remediation courses in English and Math for 40% to 60% of incoming college freshmen.

This is not a new story. Over the past three plus decades, in K-12 our children’s grades continue to go up as their learning continues to decline.

When we are afraid to fail, our children, insecure and stressed, pay the price.

I have come to believe that the arguments about school choice and public versus charter schools are a sideshow, a secondary distraction from some unpleasant truths:

Whatever the learning environment, if we fail to hold students to individually high expectations (academically and personally), fail to insist on appropriate behavior (including good attendance and civility), fail to give them space and time to explore, imagine, and innovate, fail to let them develop as individuals…If we do not teach them that failure is neither shameful nor the end, but the proud beginning of strength, individuality, confidence, learning, and success…Then we will indeed have failed our children.

Answer to Unpacking Education, No. 34, Question of the Day:

In the past three plus decades, we have seen a stark inverse correlation between our children’s rising grades and their learning decline. Our children are as intelligent as those of previous generations. However, they are unable to develop to their personal best potential when grades rather than learning are the goal. So, the correct answers are: a), b), c), d), e), f), and g).