Affirmative Teaching Failure

In “Losing is Good for You,” Ashley Merryman argues that society should stop handing out trophies for participation and instead let your child loose sometimes. Merryman states, “today, participation trophies and prizes are almost a given, as children are constantly assured that they are winners.” She later goes on and says that children who are given so much praise will crack “at the first experience of difficulty.” In her opinion, she does not believe that every child should be given a trophy because it will affect how they handle a different task. She claims that children would be better off losing than winning, and she also think that children should not get a trophy for everything they compete in.

In “Losing is Good for You”, Ashley Merryman instills the idea that society celebrates the essence of success that children achieve in any aspect of their life whether they deserve it or not. Merryman further explains that by celebrating success or, more importantly, the idea that every child is a winner, society takes away the fundamental ideas of hard work. Merryman states that as society limits the opportunity for children to experience failure, this leads to the destruction of the core beliefs of what is the true meaning of winning is and undermines overall determination, and it lowers the desire for children to work hard.

“In Praise of the ‘F’ word” is a short story written by Mary Shelly which demonstrates the deficiencies within the educational system. No student should be allowed to move onto the following grade just because a teacher cannot tolerate him or her in the classroom. Shelly illustrates this within the story as she tells the reader that she is in agreeance with the teacher’s policy of failing her students. Because of this the reader will realize that students should put in their maximum effort in the classroom instead of diminishing their studies. Once students grow up and move onto their responsibilities in the future, the ones who took school seriously will have an easier time handling those things rather than the ones who slacked off in school. Students should not be afraid to flunk classes because it matures them and prepares them for their future, and gives them a sense of accomplishment when they pass the class.

When I look at the word failure I didn’t see success. But that slowly changed as I read the book What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain Chapter four. Bain, for me and I’m sure many other, have changed our view point on failure being a bad thing. He instead expressed failure as an “opportunity to learn something.” (121) As infants we grow and develop, we learn to walk by falling down a couple hundred times, and we learn to speak by babbling. By trying to walk, and trying to talk, we may fail at first. As an infant, you cannot give up when you are face to face with failure. You must get up and try again to learn. In the book, What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain he uses people’s experiences and research to explain why failure is an opportunity to learn something new, rather than seeing failure as something bad. He asserts “people who become highly creative and productive learn to acknowledge failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them.” (100) Failure is important. If we did not get up and try again as infants, we would not be where we are today.

After that moment, I no longer saw myself as an intelligent kid who was unable to fail, but one who was and could be challenged by failure and challenged to learn from my mistakes. After revising the essay, I received an “A+,” yet this was not what made me happy. The fact that I, the twelve-year-old boy who had previously rejected failure as a possibility, could accept failure (by my standards) and use it as

“ In praise of the F word” by Mary Sherry, the author has her point that flunking students is a way that can help students do better in school. Flunking students can be helpful in getting them motivated and lead to success in their education. Students who don’t want to put in effort because they are lazy, a troublemaker, or good student that gets just passed along to next grade deserve to fail. Is it not going to be easy for students to be successful in their education. The students need to try hard to get to their goals. The students have to pass through failure to have the motivation to do better in school. If more students go through the teacher’s threats of failing, the students will want to put in the effort to able

Merryman voices “A recent study found if parents thought failure was debilitating, their kids adopted that perspective” (Merryman). It is the parent’s job to teach their children how to accept participation awards correctly. That losing is not that bad. Merryman goes on saying “If parents believed overcoming failure and mistakes make you stronger, then their children believed it, too” (Merryman). That statement pressures the idea that whatever the parent’s opinion on the matter is transferred to the kid. That kid will go on to work harder and not need the participation trophies to be an objective. The success of the children depends on the

The praise and encouragement the children receive will instill a sense of self-worth in them. When parents “prais[e] children for their effort, … [it] is… effective… motivating them” (Hammond). The praise can help children realize that their effort is valuable and that with the effort can come possible success. The motivation that their parents provide can be the foundation for self-motivation in the future, which creates more drive to continue with a challenging task. They will be given unconditional self-esteem which is essential in overcoming whatever failure they may encounter, whether it be in school or in social circumstances. Furthermore, the praise the children receive will not blind them from their faults and failures. Will children “who [have] received a trinket after losing a contest… [believe] that [they] … won” (Kohn)? Children have the ability of recognising their own defeat, and the defeat in itself will already put the child down, so a scolding parent will not help the child’s mindset. Instead, when children are encouraged after a defeat and are provided with a positive environment, they will recognise their loss and will become stronger because of it. If they realize that they are worth love and praise even if they make mistakes, they can grow and develop self-confidence

The “F” word stands for Failure. Failure is when kids don’t work to pass a class. The article talks about how teachers should use failure as a tool in the class to gain students’ attention. Teachers normally don’t threaten to fail students, but if they did then students would be motivated to get their work done on time. In my opinion, the teachers should use this tool to keep the class on track omit they are more than likely not to fail.

In “In Praise of the F Word” Mary Sherry focuses not on how the difficulties that the students have to face affect their performance in school, but how the “fear of failure” compels them to work. Sherry believes that diplomas are meaningless; because most passing students did not master the work. Additionally, some high school graduates told her that they do not even know how they get the diplomas. She believes that the fluning policy is “an expression of confidence by both parents and teachers” (Sherry 560).And we should give the students the choice to be success or fail. Sherry falsely assumes that flunking a student will make the students perform better at school.

Ashley Merryman, co-author of “Nature Shock,” (NY Times, Oct. 6, 2016) in “Forget Trophies, Let Kids Know It’s O.K. to Lose” argues that there is nothing wrong with losing because failure can actually be helpful. I passionately agree with this.

Thomas Edison -- the inventor of the light bulb -- failed 1,000 times before perfecting his design. Why should we raise a young person, a student no less, to a higher standard than America’s greatest inventor? The nation pushes people forward, telling each individual that they are not allowed to be unsuccessful. This causes a multitude of people unnecessary stress; there is no longer a “good enough,” one could always do better. However, one shouldn’t be required to always do better; according to Zinsser, we need to “take a hundred side trips . . . Faltering, drawing back, and starting again” in order to find our purpose. “Failure” isn’t a dreadful word -- it is a valuable one that holds no venom in its

The word “failure”, by definition, is the condition of not achieving the desired end or ends. However, this standard definition does not come close to summing up the countless other meanings of failure. Every person, regardless of status, color, or sex, has had to deal with this issue at least once in their lifetime. Even so, each person’s definition of it can vary depending on their personal experiences. The interpretations of failure may differ, but failure itself involves not putting forth effort, being a disappointment, or not succeeding in a task.

Failure is something that we cannot go through life without experiencing. The best thing about failure is that failure can be used as a great learning experience to improve upon things in our lives and career. Using failure as a learning tool is dependent upon the person and how they view it as well as how they use it. Failure is a matter of perspective and the lessons in failure are important aspects towards growth and development. If we did not experience failure there wouldn’t be opportunities for learning. Failure can teach us about ourselves as well as provide an understanding for our

Traditionally, failure is seen as a negative concept and is defined as lacking success. I, on the other hand, try to put a positive spin on everything in life. I see failure as an obstacle that is experienced by all, but it does not define an individual. Failure in essence will force an individual to be more receptive to their surroundings and actions and also will force an individual to mature. Looking back on my childhood years I can now pinpoint the areas where I failed and I can confidently say that I have grown and prospered due to those failures. The three major failures I have experienced were my attention deficit issues which affected my ability to succeed in school, my anti-social habit that I let consume my early years, and my