Traditional vs. Modern in Education

[Jeff]

The current education system sucks! People are so worried about self-esteem and not hurting the feelings of kids when they fail a test or get answers wrong. They'll be in for a rude awakening when they get older and enter the workforce.

[Charlie]

Kids NEED to experience failure. They have to know what it feels like to get things wrong, because otherwise when some real work comes along they won't be able to handle it.

[MsThang]

I agree that kids need to experience failure, BUT only if they are then guided in the proper ways to view/deal with failure. The whole reason the concern over self esteem came about was because too many kids weren't being taught how to see failure as an opportunity for improvement, but only as a sign of their weaknesses.

[Charlie]

The opposite of that situation has now come to pass. All children, no matter what their abilities are led to believe that they are perfect little geniuses who can do no wrong. And when they then do find something going wrong they cannot handle it.

Just think about it-you go through fifteen years of education getting 100% scores on every test. Suddenly its off into a job that actually tests you, and you flunk out. How does that make you feel? Like crap.

Both failure and success need to be a part of life so that they become a normal and acceptable part of life. You have to experience failure or else you cannot learn to handle it and learn from it. And I don't mean major let downs either-simple things like scoring only 90% on a test instead of always getting 100%. It lets kids know that they are not invincible-because that is a dangerous thing. Its not self esteem-its preparing them for real life where situations are not always manipulated to make them feel good.