This post is related to the Everything is Harder Than You Think article. Read that first if you haven’t already.
A lot of people get hung up on the idea of failing. As kids, we were taught that if we get a bad grade in class, we’re failures.
We were given a bad grade if we didn’t perform well on a test. We were expected to know the answers.
The kids who got A’s the first time around were revered and labeled as the “smart kids.” In reality, maybe they had an advantage because their learning style was well-suited to the methods used in school. Some of them may have already been home-schooled so they picked up lessons more quickly than the average student.
The problem is that we were not often retested and given another chance after the first bad grade.
It doesn’t matter how well you do at something when you are new at it or when you are taught something new.
The teaching system is failing us and punishing us for not learning something the first time around. The fact is that not everyone learns at the same pace.
Learning from Failing
Failing gives us a chance to revisit the information and cement it in our minds.
The word failing is seen as a negative and bad thing when it should be regarded as an opportunity to patch holes in knowledge and skills.
Once we are out of school and in the real world, we fail at a lot of things. We make mistakes and these mistakes help us learn and improve ourselves.
Sometimes we can skip some failings by asking the right questions or reading the right books. Even so, we fail all the time and are given chances to learn from it.
So why are we teaching kids in school that failing is bad? Like I said earlier, it is a busted system.
It discourages many people from taking chances in adulthood because the fear of failing is instilled in their brains.
You can play it safe and be average and keep your fails to a minimum.
Or you can fail a lot and become great.
