Why Failure Is Bad

Almost all parents want their children to fail to help their children see that their parent’s don’t want them to fail. Middle school teacher, Matthew Benoit, once claimed, “Year after year, my "best" students—the ones who are happiest and successful in their lives—are the students who were allowed to fail, held responsible for missteps, and challenged to be the best people they could be in the face of their mistakes” (“qtd. in Lahey”). I have a friend named John Kim who once failed a class and used the experience to better himself. When he was in high school, he has failed his pre-calculus class. His parents understand it is okay to fail a class and told him that “everybody did make the mistake in order for success.” He felt that he made his parents disappointed at him. He realizes failure is good for first time experience, and he tried to push himself a little bit farther. He would sacrifice his time by going to school from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm. After a few months, he was attending a club was for ACT and SAT. The ACT is an achievement test, measuring what a student has learned in school; the SAT is more of an aptitude test, testing reasoning and verbal abilities. He works so hard in school, and he learned a lot of new things. The club was offered Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3 pm. He learned a lot of tricks and new ways to get a better score

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.

Failure is something that all people encounter in their lives. In some situations failure can break a person or make a person, meaning a person can fail at something and just simply give up. Others will fail and that failure can give them the inspiration to try harder to one day achieve their goal. I'm the type of person to fail and work harder until I am content. As my championship baseball coach would say "What’s our motto? Never give up!"

Failure can be a very difficult thing to cope with. It can be something that makes you or breaks you. I have learned that failure is what defines a person; it shows your motivation to bounce back when things get rough. I have learned from my failure instead of dwelling on it and making myself weaker.

The short story, The Right to Fail by William Zinsser, explains how it is acceptable to fail and learn from one's mistakes and to not go down the path society has made socially acceptable. Zinner has a positive outlook on the concept of failing, he explains, “Success can be dangerous- you feel you know it all. I’ve learned a  great deal from my failures.” As life goes on, everyone may not succeed the same way or even succeed at everything they attempt to do, but it is important to learn from mistakes and continue moving forward and to find the path that works for you. Trying new things and failing or succeeding can open new doors to something better.

The article “To Err Is Wrong” by Roger Von Oech, “In Praise of the F Word” by Mary Shelly, and “Zero” by Paul Logan are inspirational to many people because it shows them that failure is not a roadblock and you can learn from your mistakes. Failure plays a significant role as a motivational tool, direction, and strength to help students to be successful in the class and in the future. The word failure has been shown in several cases to cause motivation. One of the cases is in the article “ The Praise Of The Word” when Mary Sherry told her son that his teacher was going to “flunk” him (Sherry98) .

Failure is widely viewed as negative. While this portrayal of failure is justified, it does not tell the whole story. Failure is a learning experience because it explains the errors made, and then the person figures out how to fix the mistakes. The way individuals respond to the failure is a great way to evaluate his/her character. There

Failure is a missed opportunity, poor test grade, or missing the game-winning goal. Depending on its scale, certain failures can cause one individual to cry and another to shake it off. In school, one individual's failure is another one's success. I experience failure like this but at a different scale because to me, failure is more than disappointing my parents or teachers. I feel like I am defined by that failure, and that it will never vanish. This particular failure defines me and will stay with me throughout my school years.

To begin with, we should go over what failure is and how people see it as “bad”. It’s a word that is used when you or something is done isn’t successful. This is usually a good reason why people

Failure is a word that covers all aspects of education to a student. But when does the failure begin? Some say it starts at home with parents and some say it begins in the classroom with teachers. In Mary Sherry’s essay “In Praise of the F Word” she states that countless students do not have the skills they need to succeed. This can be very influential with education now a day. Educators and parents often praise students for simply showing up to class instead of praising those who work hard. Are we doing justice to the children of our future? No! We need to stop treating failure as our worst enemy and instead, embrace it with a positive attitude. Failure can show students where they went wrong and trying to fix it is the first part of success.

Through out my high school career I never took my education seriously. For most of the four years it was a big blur. I’m not quite sure if it was because of me or if I found myself blaming my surroundings or teachers for my lack of focus and strive to learn. A failure can mean different things to everyone else. Maybe there’s just different types or categories of failures. These failures are meant to teach us something, or motivate us to simply not make these mistakes again.

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

Failure often times leads a person to feel helpless, disappointed and depressed. However,one should not allow this to set them back in trying to achieve the ultimate aim one has set out to do. Failure in the beginning can often be a powerful incentive to reassess one’s position in wanting to achieve the particular aims; to analyse whether the purpose is worth the trouble the person has to undergo and the whether the obstacles are surmountable.

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