When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

20 July 2005

Redefining "failure"

From our friends at Reuters:
LONDON (Reuters) - The word 'fail' should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase 'deferred success' to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. 'We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time,' he said.

'But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary,' he said.

The PAT said it would debate the proposal at a conference next week.

In the same vein, perhaps we could suggest "condition of deferred remuneration" instead of "unemployed and broke"; "deferred domicile" for "homeless," and "cognitively-challenged group of psychobabble-spouting idiots" for "Professional Association of Teachers."

If there were ever any doubt that the Church of Self-Esteem has firmly established itself as a reigning piety in the field of education, let it now be removed. God forbid that children should receive an honest evaluation of their work; building up their fragile self-image is FAR more important than preparing them to be thinking, employable adults one day.

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