A child does not fail, but "defers success"

The Guardian ^ | Wednesday July 20, 2005 | David Ward and Matthew Taylor

[NixonsAngryGhost]

A child does not fail, but defers success

David Ward and Matthew Taylor Wednesday July 20, 2005 The Guardian

If your children come home with reports suggesting they have been asleep for most of the last school year, do not label them as failures. They have been merely "deferring success". Failure, says Liz Beattie, a retired primary school teacher, is a word that should be deleted from the classroom dictionary, because it can put children off learning. Mrs Beattie and a colleague will propose abolishing the f-word in a motion to be debated next week in Buxton, Derbyshire, at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers. The motion reads: "Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary, to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'."

But others feel failure is as important for children as success - deferred or otherwise. "Everyone fails at some time in their lives and it is often in those circumstances that we learn the most," said Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education.

[NixonsAngryGhost]

Multicultural PC Insanity

[ncountylee]

A child does not fail, but defers success

NEA's exact position.

[Mo1]

Soooooooooo .. she wasn't born a loser .. it was just delayed success??

[carumba]

Sow's ear to silk purse ploy.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Don't forget...

2 + 2 = 5

[nerdwithamachinegun]

Insanity is right.

So, if a person never succeeds at anything worthwhile and dies are they a failure THEN?

Too bad that not enough public scorn for this mush-headed utopian mental masturbation will be heaped on this miserable excuse for a teacher.

[carumba]

Fail is one syllable. You need something catchy, short, and imaginative. Lets work it 'til we get it right. I say you can just make up a new word. Flooble. Squanty. Hyboid. Blew it. If we all put our heads together we can come up with something.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

Multicultural PC Insanity

True, but both in the UK and in the USA, insanity is winning the battle.

[SoDak]

I'm sleep-challenged.

[1FASTGLOCK45]

When the child grows up, and he's a Freakin Failure, will he tell his boss to keep him on the job because of his "Defers success" stage will be over soon? :P

A stone is a stone, a brick is a brick, a failure is what it is, a "F"ailure. Not wanting to be a failure or looser is what made me what i am, sucessful and proud.

[JRios1968]

So, in the same vein, the Dims have "deferred" any success on railroading Karl Rove!

[spinestein]

[A child does not fail, but defers success]



This statement is an excellent example of "deferred wisdom".

[gridlock]

And if he is really, really hopeless, he is "deferring success indefinitely"...

[gridlock]

Negative things have negative words attached to them. Failing is a bad thing, so "failure" is a bad word. Inside of six months "deferred success" or "DS" will be as dicouraging a word as "failure" ever was.

The way to eliminate the stigma associated with failure is to eliminate failure. But the teachers union is not enthusiastic about that, so they just invent new terms to obscure the truth.

[spinestein]

George Carlin notes that the label "minimally exceptional" is often used.

as in:

SCHOOL COUNSELOR -- "Your child is minimally exceptional."

CHILD'S MOM -- "Oh, Thank God for that!"

[chgomac]

This would be funny if it weren't so true and so sad!

I have some state "youth" workers at my place and it's shocking at how mis-informed they are. These are good kids, smart and hard workers. Yesterday I corrected a young one who told me that Japan has a huge unliveable area and has never recovered from our bomb dropped right after Pearl Harbor. I could hear the little wheels turning in her mind as we discussed the real facts. Makes me wonder if they ever had to read a book in school (or if their books were full of revisionist history!!)

[clee1]

More psycobabble bullsqueeze from the educrats.

[Kelly_2000]

This should have has the warning Barf alert attached to it :-(

more politically correct celebrations of mediocrity

[goldstategop]

Liberals do not like some people being more successful or accomplished than others. Their philosophy is one in which every one attains a level of middling mediocrity. That way no stands out - and no one is a failure either.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[markomalley]

I hoped that this madness was restricted to our country. I'm sorry to see that I'm wrong.