Not a 'fail' - it's 'deferred success'

July 19, 2005 07:48

A RETIRED primary school teacher has said she wants to see the word 'fail' erased from use in education – and replaced with the term 'deferred success'.

Liz Beattie, who has 37 years of teaching experience, said she believes children who are told they have failed can be crushed by the experience.

And, in a bid to cut the use of the word, she is set to propose that fail be deleted from the educational vocabulary at a national conference later this month.

Her motion in full reads: “Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of deferred success.”

Mrs Beattie, 68, will put the motion, which will be seconded by a colleague from Yorkshire, to the annual conference of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) on July 28.

Speaking last night, she said: “Failure is very hard to cope with. Eventually, if you experience enough of it, it stops you in your tracks.

“Education is too important for that – we need to keep people striving on. I've always thought that, educationally, it was a good thing to get rid of total pass or total fail.

“Learning should be life-long and it should be something that everybody knows they can do and knows they can have a bash at.

“We're not helping it. They are still talking pass and fail and it's a very depressing thing to deal with.”

Mrs Beattie, who lives in Ipswich, continued: “I'd rather tell kids that they have done jolly well, they worked really well, they have achieved that and that's brilliant.

“You can then say tomorrow we should try that – rather than just saying you've failed.

“I think we all need to succeed at something. You need encouragement rather than being told you haven't done very well.”

If the motion is passed at the conference, PAT's ruling council will decide how it should inform the association's policy, which currently states that “all individual achievement should be recognised.”

Mrs Beattie, PAT Suffolk Federation Secretary and field officer, said she would not totally rule out ever using the word in education – but stressed encouragement was the key.

“I think it can stop children in their tracks,” she added. “In a way we all deal with failure, but if it stops us trying something that is terrible.

“It's an attitude of mind. I would not say never tell them that they (pupils) haven't managed something but we've all got to strive. It's a case of getting the balance right.

“I would be surprised if we didn't get the motion through because I think there are enough teachers at all levels who know that, with little ones, you've got to get them motivated and with the older ones you've got to give them confidence going into exams.

“I feel very strongly about the idea. It's a thing that has always coloured the way I taught.”

Martin Goold, Suffolk secretary of the NUT, said: “I would have thought that the word fail had been eradicated from most educational settings already.

“I can't think of any situation where it is used, apart from a public examination where the lowest grade is the letter F, the first letter of the word fail.

“The word is not used nowadays in educational circles. We attach levels to pupils' progress, or grades in examinations.”


from EADT.co.uk


so why bother having exams anymore? Lets just say everyone passes as we wouldn't want to hurt their feelings :loopy:

I feel the same sense of intellectual and emotional fatigue I did the first time I saw: "Contains scenes of mild peril" on a film trailer...:help:

Are you sure that this idea has originated from a retired teacher or is she on an extented career break? It's a good thing that someone with such loopy ideas is no longer in a school in a position to indoctrinate the citizens of tomorrow.

It's been a while since I taught but I can't remember ever having reason to use the word 'fail' when teaching primary children.

Martin Goold, Suffolk secretary of the NUT, said: “I would have thought that the word fail had been eradicated from most educational settings already.

“I can't think of any situation where it is used, apart from a public examination where the lowest grade is the letter F, the first letter of the word fail.

“The word is not used nowadays in educational circles. We attach levels to pupils' progress, or grades in examinations.”


Says it all.

Sounds like Mrs Beattie is reinventing the wheel.

I don't care what they call it, I'll always be a failure in my Dad's eyes! :confused: :cry:

Failure makes you scared, the word fail is not what you want to see, so maybe it makes you work harder to pass. Differed success... whats that all about, its like saying you got a B- !!

From BBC News online - political correctness gone mad or sensible physcology?

Teachers say no-one should 'fail'

"Deferred success" should replace the idea of failure for low-achieving pupils, a teachers' organisation will hear at its annual conference.
The Professional Association of Teachers will be told next week the label of failure could undermine children's enthusiasm for school.

Delegates will also hear a condemnation of the phrase "happy slapping" for bullying recorded on phone cameras.

There will also be calls for better diction in children's television.

Liz Beattie, a retired teacher, will call on the association's annual gathering in Buxton, Derbyshire, to "delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'".

Demolish

She argues that repeated failure, such as in exams, can damage pupils' interest in learning.

Wesley Paxton, a member of the association's council, is supporting the motion - as he argues for a system that "tops up" rather than fails.

"If you engage a builder to build a 5-foot wall and he only does it 4' 9", you fetch him back.

"You don't demolish it and make him start all over again - he simply lays another course of bricks to 'top it up'.

"But failing an exam - especially if it involves repeating an entire year - does demolish and make you start again," said Mr Paxton.

"There is no virtue in doing anything twice in the pursuit of 'academic rigour'," he said.

"Elsewhere we applaud those who persevere, like marathon contestants who take days to complete. It's time we made the word 'fail' redundant and replaced it with 'please do a bit more'."

The association, one of the smaller organisations for teachers, will also hear a call to block the use of the term "happy slapping" - when the attacks recorded on phones should be labelled as either an assault or bullying.

And there will be a call for "the producers of children's programmes to consider and address the presentation, language and diction of those programmes".

Come on Andy, mate. do a search first!
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?threadid=50116

YAY! :clap: I'm a SF pedant! :banana:

Originally posted by Carmine
I feel the same sense of intellectual and emotional fatigue I did the first time I saw: "Contains scenes of mild peril" on a film trailer...:help:

Same here. I don't understand how the media manages to find time for these people :(

On the other hand, it raises an important point that I have discovered as my eldest is just starting 2nd year of primary school. Many children are not rewarded for effort, just for grades. What this means is that the high achievers are often rewarded, but the low achievers are never rewarded, no matter how hard they try.

In other words, I think that a child should be rewarded if they have genuinely tried as hard as they can, even if the result is not as high as other kids, and the ones who consistently score highly without trying at all should be rewarded less, to encourage them to actually put some effort in. Reward for personal achievement, not for meeting blanket targets.

What a load of nonsense! Failure makes me more determined to succeed. Why must we celebrate and praise mediocrity?

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
In other words, I think that a child should be rewarded if they have genuinely tried as hard as they can, even if the result is not as high as other kids, and the ones who consistently score highly without trying at all should be rewarded less, to encourage them to actually put some effort in. Reward for personal achievement, not for meeting blanket targets.
What form do the rewards that you're talking about take?

Outlaw political correctnous

I consider myself average and throughout 17 years of education I never failed anyway. I don't think anyone does - you just get a low grade. To get an F (at school level) i'm sure you only need a few percent, which can probably achieved by making a mark on the page. So this is basically nonsense.

Yeah , I thought that no child had failed in anything for years , in the U.K.
The sad thing is that children actually get to know each other in school ! Now isn't that utterly unbelievable !!
So , no matter what words we use to describe children , they know themselves who is good at this and bad at that.
If some politically correct nincompoop tries to tell all the children that they're all REALLY good at everything and that their success is only "deferred"--do you think they'd be interested ? Children live in the , "here and now ". I'm sure that children are simply not interested in what might be the case in X years time .
Also , some children might not give a monkey's if they're no good at certain subjects. Children in schools quite often , cheerfully , tell you that , "I'm really bad at maths , teacher ".
The problem with the , "P.C." approach is that when these kids who've been wrapped in cotton wool , by the likes of Mrs. Beatty [?] enter the big , bad world , they find they come up against brick walls and some of them do fail to get the job......etc.....they want , simply because they're not up to it. Perhaps that's why we have so many neurotic , unhappy , semi-hysterical adults around these days ? They are the , "kids" who expected to fail at nothing .

maybe if kids failed at school then it would be a spur for them not to fail again? Just a thought.

you do fail in schools by not achieving. Ie if a subject is split up into compitency groups.

Maybe if kids learned about success and failure in early life then they would strive hard to succeed?

It seems to be quite easy for children to float through school in the kind of middle ground and spend their early life just going through the motions.

This is a truly foolish venture. Imagine going through life with the unshakeable knowledge that you can't fail at anything, success is merely defered. It's unrealistic to think that everything is within everyones grasp, some people fail some people succeed. That's why there are losers.

If I screw up and I don't attain my goal then I admit I've failed. I don't hide behind namby pamby mollycoddling - I take it on the chin and accept it rather than wandering around with the idiotic notion that things are fluffy, cuddly and fine. Its not, lifes s***. Its spikey, cruel, unpleasant, harsh and disappointing and the sooner people realise that the better.

Originally posted by Swan_Vesta
Its not, lifes s***. Its spikey, cruel, unpleasant, harsh and disappointing and the sooner people realise that the better.

There are nice things in life though.


I just can't think of any off-hand:D;)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the crackpot ideas of Mrs. Beattie and her ilk , haven't come from that Disneyland of Education , that Sink of Stupidity , California.
I've been involved in education now , for 25 years and time and time again , not only in the U.K. , I've seen ideas adopted from America , simply because they ARE American and these ideas have failed dismally but have been pursued because they are the , "latest " thing in educational theory.

To give just one example. In one school I taught at , the Head , following something she'd read by a Prof. Pipedream from America , decided that in the classrooms , the kids should sit in a huge circle , presumably so that they would all feel equal in status.
The result was that some of them were constantly scowling at their enemies , some were smiling and sending silent , "lip" messages to their friends and of course , unless the teacher stood bang in the middle , some child or other was ALWAYS further from the teacher than another,. The teachers found it very difficult to look over the students' shoulders to help them , as the circles almost filled the classrooms and the backs of the chairs , more or less , touched the walls. It was all a complete mess but of course the Head was stubborn-----wasn't this , after all , the latest thing from America ?
I could give dozens of examples like that. It's a case of British educationalists having no bright ideas of their own to fit the British system , so they read a book and slavishly swallow the lot. ; saves thinking though , dunnit ?

This is a ridiculous idea!

Originally posted by Swan_Vesta
Its not, lifes s***. Its spikey, cruel, unpleasant, harsh and disappointing and the sooner people realise that the better.

I'm adding frustrating, irritating, depressing, harrowing and down right bloody minded.

I have deferred success to have a good day. A pox on it all.

Congratulations to all forum members.

We all now hold 8 GCSEs at A*, 10 A levels at A* and degrees in every -ology available.

Honest, we do, they're just deferred successes. :loopy:

I'm a stud really. you lucky ladies just don't know it...yet;)

I've a deferred success

In terms of ideas this is SO stupid.

These poor deferred successes are going to walk out of school, meet the real world and the real world is going to kick the crap out of them.

I have a vision of millions of Ralph Wiggums walking in to a job center.... 'I'm deferred!'

I was going to try and make a sensible, serious posting on this subject but it's one of those ideas that is so laughable that to try and argue against it would give it spurious validity.

Let me just say that it's an idea that reeks of political correctness and that will inevitably be a deferred success.

Joe

Originally posted by Fareast
...The problem with the , "P.C." approach is that when these kids who've been wrapped in cotton wool , by the likes of Mrs. Beatty [?] enter the big , bad world , they find they come up against brick walls and some of them do fail to get the job......etc.....they want , simply because they're not up to it. Perhaps that's why we have so many neurotic , unhappy , semi-hysterical adults around these days ? They are the , "kids" who expected to fail at nothing .
Spot on Fareast.


I just hope I don't have a "deferred success" when I try opening my parachute when sky-diving...

...could be kinda messy.


:gag:

I am surprised that people on the forum think that this is a new idea or that it has yet to be implemented. On BTEC HNC and HND courses it has been standard practice for years to have a 'Working Towards' category for those who fail an assessment. This is designated as a 'W' rather than an 'F' on student's results forms. There is also profligate use of deferrals and referrals (Ds and Rs) on these programmes - just don't use the F word.

Beattie's unutterably fatuous ideas are an extension of the concept of 'self-fulfilling prophecy' associated with some schools of psychology, but most notably with the under-theorised, reductionist 'labelling' perspectives of American sociologist, Howard S.Becker. The basic premise is that if one fails a pupil or student's paper, one is fixing a negative 'label' to the person concerned [figures of authority having the power to make such labels 'stick']. The 'labelled' person will most likely go on to develop the negative characteristics ascribed. For example, label a pupil a bully, and they will most likely go on to behave like one.

There is no cogent evidence whatsoever for this theory. Indeed, I would think that Jon J Parr's suggestion holds more water; failure more likely increases determination to succeed in the case of well-adjusted, non-neurotic types.

The plain fact is that somebody has to fail in any credible academic examination. We need failure as a yardstick by which to judge success. Any exam which cannot be failed has no intellectual credibility whatsoever. Heaven help us if this warped philosophy catches hold! What next, 'Come and study at The Central University of Neepsend Tip Site- the University where everyone's a winner!' I can see it coming, Degrees offered with the assurance that nobody 'fails' because everybody 'matters'.

Lord Chaverly points out, with his usual panache, how life is full of pitfalls, disappointments, cruelties, injustices etc. How very true, and how right this most excellent poster is to say, effectively,' get on with it.' The problem is, in our increasingly sanitised, McDonaldised world, children are socialised into expecting the experience of easily achieved successes, of life in easily digestable bite-sized pieces, and justice for all in our 'classless', 'multicultural' New Britain. They are growing up in a society in which the 'litigation culture' is rampant too. A babyish Liverpool couple recently tried to sue Fazackerley Hospital because they were not offered a cup of tea. One envisages a situation where kiddiewinkies sue teacher for giving them a mark of 4 out of ten, or not praising their plasticine worms highly enough.

Sorry, it is Swan Vesta on this occasion who praise must be awarded to. I misread the author's name there.

What if it goes more widespread?

Pilot: "Control tower, I have Deferred success in both engines"

"Politically correct Do-Gooder required".