Winning by Losing: The Lost Art of Failure

This week I read a story entitled…
“After FCAT Scores Plunge, State Quickly Lowers the Passing Grade”
The particular state, test, nor circumstances in the story were relevant to the all too familiar point that popped into my head. In this instance, the state may very well have had their reasons for doing so. Individual student aptitude, after all, is nearly impossible to accurately nail down by one all-encompassing standardized test. Nevertheless, I was troubled that the immediate response was not rising to the challenge of improvement, but lowering the minimum standard.

From the days of “Everybody gets a ribbon” in little league, to higher education today, it seems the mind-set of educators and parents alike has evolved (or devolved) from learning from one’s failure, to a perplexing and futile attempt to eliminate it from the curriculum altogether; thereby supposedly protecting their feelings and keeping self-confidence intact. The results, unsurprisingly, is a generation largely consisting of individuals who not only lack the mental capacity to handle real failure when they’re thrust into the unforgiving real world, but are also sadly unable to see the valuable opportunity failure presents itself as a tool to learn, improve, and grow as a human being.

Parents naturally want to protect their child from pain and suffering. And yes, failure does somewhat involve those experiences.  But if you look at it as a case of instead of “protecting from”, to “building an immunity to”, it’s easier to understand. For instance, when you immunize your children from disease, what are you actually doing? You are giving them small harmless doses of the disease until the body incorporates it and develops the anti-bodies to protect itself from greater exposure to the disease in the future. Same concept. If you let your child deal with the painful loss of a basketball game or experience the repercussions of seeing a red “F” at the top of a math quiz when it’s not a matter of life and death, they’ll be better prepared as an adult when faced with the reality of a job layoff.

Is it any wonder why there are more and more stories about fired employees returning to the office with a gun?