Handling Disappointment
Posted: Thu 11 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Cynicism, Education, People, Thoughts, Work-related |3 Comments »According to the BBC today, a school in Somerset has banned Valentine’s Day cards. Not because they’re an over-priced over-commercialised bit of tat that means fuck-all except bigger profits for Clinton Fuckbag Cards (to give them their full stock-exchange title) and their ilk. Oh no, it’s so the little darlings the “emotional trauma” of being rejected if they don’t get a card.
Somewhere along the way, we seem to have become so paranoid about how children deal with failure, they now have no idea at all what to do when failure does happen.
I think it started with the introduction of GCSE exams, where all the grades were a “pass”. (glossing slightly over the “X” and “U” grades – they were still a grade, even if it was one that marked you as having not completed the course) Then there was all the rubbish about not having sports day in some schools, because it was ‘harmful’ to the little bastards if they lost a race.
Where I work we’re beginning to see the results of this generation’s inability to deal with failure. We’ve recently been interviewing people for jobs, and it’s really surprising how many of them just walk in expecting to get the job – no preparation, not dressing for the interview, no experience in the area, and still expecting to just walk in and get the job simply for being able to walk in through the door.
This vogue for not letting children fail is incredibly damaging – part of life is about dealing with failure, of how to handle not being perfect. I don’t know why or how it came about that failure was a bad thing – but I do hope that it’s a trend that gets reversed before too much longer.
I find I know (and have worked with) the Head in question. He seems to have changed a lot…
Given that VD is on a Sunday, I’m not sure it’s worth the fuss he’s making. Publicity stunt perhaps?
And as for GCSEs – the test parts (modules) of many of them can be repeated until one has enough marks for a C grade. I worked with a youngster yesterday who has raised his grade in ‘core science’ from E to C through retakes. He comes form a chaotic family and has done absolutley no work (coursework or revision) at all at home, so it was simply luck of test questions/practice effect. Had he not recently dropped ‘additional science’ the same work would have given him an E/F mark, had he done nothing else, the Head of Science told me.
U has always been a ‘fail’ grade (unclassified), even at ‘O’ level. And, to go on to ‘A’ level or HE, only A-Cs are counted as pass grades. But, it’s all changing with the new 14-19 initiatives. Much more about functional skills underpinning everything and not about who has the best memory/nerves on the day.
I think you’re being a bit unfair about the concept of ‘failing’ being absent from education. It isn’t. Kids are more aware than ever of the stage they are working at, and their place in their class, thanks to governmint tests, and the time their teachers take to teach to them. I’ve worked with kids of 6 and 7 who already perceive themself as failures thanks to early testing.
I know that people/children still feel like failures, but the overarching belief structure seems to still be about protecting people from being ‘failures’ while testing them to destruction.
Of course that’s the flaw in the “keep on testing” theorem – if you have to keep on testing them ’til they pass, they know they’ve failed [x] times…
Completely agree with you there; this is bullshit. I remember being in high school and all the girls who had recieved flowers that day were called over the PA at the end of the day to collect their tokens of love. Granted, I felt rejected, even though I didn’t let on, and merely sat there flicking paint at these girls, but I would not have wanted Valentines banned at all… because at least until the end of the day I had a flicker of teenage hope that I might have a secret admirerer… and I certainly learned not to cry about it when I never did. Woah betide the children of the future.