BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 02:48 AM

Thank-you, John. Thats how I see it, too.

School is a child's social world. When they fail, they think of it as failing in life. There are much more appropriate ways to tell parents that their child is struggling in a subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Sooz
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 02:50 AM

Pupils come into my school as 11 plus failures. (The successes go to the grammar school down the road.) Unfortunately, many accept their label and eventually leave with few qualifications. However, each year an equal number turn out to be stars, some of them against all odds. They are the ones who make the job worthwhile.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Shakey
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 05:14 AM

Auggie said:
Shakey. I didn't think Michelle's post implied that she "knew you". Only that she was inclined to include you among those who make disrespectful, stupid comments.

The correct response to

umm, i make one comment and you know me, you must be one hell of a teacher.
is
umm, i make one comment and you know how good a teacher I am.

---

Michelle said of her training
If you fall below that at any time, for any reason, you are OUT...period...no second chances.

Umm, interesting.


She went on to say:

Teachers have one of the most important jobs in the world.

Actually I believe they have the most important job in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: LilyFestre
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 07:41 AM

I say ONE of the most important jobs in the world because I believe that there are additional positions that are also highly important which include (in no particular order) farmers, doctors and parents.

Michelle

PS. Regarding the University standards....that is the way it works. If you fall below the 3.0, you are not allowed to remain in the Education Department. They want people there who are interested in learning how to be teachers, not in people who just want to shuffle through. For students who are struggling, there are tutors and the professors have office hours where one can seek assistance.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Shakey
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 07:48 AM

Oh come on. You are talking about failure, try saying it, it won't harm you, f a i l u r e.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 07:59 AM

The schoolkid who gets his exam result back and it says he failed is not interested in knowing there will be others tests he may pass. To him he's a loser and that's that. (John)

Whereas the one who gets his results back and it says his success is deferred feels like a winner?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 07:59 AM

C&P'd

"The Professional Association of Teachers will be told at its meeting next week that the label of failure"

What a bunch of deluded pussies! Someone needs to have a good look at "Bill Gate's Rules For Children"

       RULE 1: Life is not fair - get used to it.

       RULE 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

       RULE 3: You will NOT make 50 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.

       RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

       RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

       RULE 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

       RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

       RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.
In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

       RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

       RULE 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

       RULE 11: Be nice to the nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.



Was it George Carlin who said, "Kids are like any other group of people... very few winners at the top... whole lotta losers at the bottom."

In accordance to Rule #1 Dennis Leary said "Life sucks, get a f-king helmet!" Put that up in glow-in-the-dark letters over the bed of your "minimally exceptional" kid who is enjoying the fruits of his "deferred success" because he "just hasn't succeeded yet"... Might help give him a little perspective on the Real World...

Check your dictionary Especially #1, 2 and 3...

fail
v. failed, fail·ing, fails
v. intr.

   1. To prove deficient or lacking; perform ineffectively or inadequately: failed to fulfill their promises; failed in their attempt to reach the summit.
   2. To be unsuccessful: an experiment that failed.
   3. To receive an academic grade below the acceptable minimum.
   4. To prove insufficient in quantity or duration; give out: The water supply failed during the drought.
   5. To decline, as in strength or effectiveness: The patient's heart began to fail.
   6. To cease functioning properly: The engine failed.
   7. To give way or be made otherwise useless as a result of excessive strain: The rusted girders failed and caused the bridge to collapse.
   8. To become bankrupt or insolvent: Their business failed during the last recession.

Provided your success wasn't deferred when you were supposed to be learning to read...

"do not necessarily achieve success first time"
Succeed... that's the word this blatherskite is looking for... you don't 'achieve success'... you succeed... Or you fail... Just cause you change the language, doesn't mean you change the thing... 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' still walks, swims and quacks like 'Shell Shock'... And when they called it Shell Shock, a lot of the guys who needed it got good help dealing with it...

These are the same kind of self-important, over-educated, under-intelligent people that want to call a hurricane a "vertical, circular wind disturbance", cause they THINK it makes them sound like they know what they're talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 01:15 PM

Bill Gates is the ultimate failure. A very wealthy failure, but a failure nonetheless.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 04:18 PM

Ya... right... whatever...

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: Bert
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 09:29 PM

Shakey. you said "I have the utmost respect for teachers". So do I, the good ones that is, all three of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: John O'L
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 09:50 PM

I have no specific recollection of my deferred success at school (and in life) as being the result of the word 'failure', but it fits in nicely with the arrogance and dictatorial bullying I do remember as being a standard day of being taught by a teacher in a classroom in the '50's & 60's. It is also in keeping with the public humiliation which was one of their favourite tools of punishment.

Any change from the schooling I had is an improvement. 'Failure' is an unnecesarily ugly, dismissive and permanent word.
('Deferred success' is a stupid phrase, but if the choice is between just those two, then it is preferable IMO.)

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 01:57 PM

Bert, I realise you're being amusing - not every here will mind you - but it is certainly true that there are, always have been, a number of totally useless teachers. I was lucky enough to go to an old style grammar school and we had more than our fair share of good ones, but on the other hand there were a number that were a complete waste of time. One of the problems in the past was that it was almost impossible to get rid of a teacher no matter how poor he/she was, I believe things are changing a little in this regard.

Nevertheless, I was sincere when I said that I have the utmost respect for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Oh Dear, failure is not an option
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 05:48 PM

"Deferred success" means, if you got it wrong, you keep working on it til you get it right. That's how it works in music anyway. Failures are the ones who won't try to get it right. Never got this grading business--because you can't move on until you've got it right--