There Is No Success Without the Existence of Failure 

It is easy to look at a student’s report card or GPA and make an assumption based on one number or letter on what kind of student they are. If you were to see a D- you might think they were an underachiever. Same idea if you saw they were repping a 2.2 GPA. It has become practice that we see a grade rather than a student when in an academic setting. But, do we ever ask why that student might be struggling? How did they get to this low point in their education? What can the education system do to help them? No we do not. More often than not we simply tell them to go see a tutor or study more. But what if there is something deeper going on. Educators and administrators need to start looking at the whole student, rather than focusing on what they see at the surface.

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    Students are constantly in battle. Whether they are battling with themselves, their mind, or the perception of others just to name a few possibilities, it is a hard fight. As a first year college student, I am sometimes fighting to keep myself afloat in this new environment. These aren’t new feelings however and stem from a long line of self doubt. All throughout high school I felt that there was more I could do, more I could achieve and a higher standard I could reach. I didn’t have D’s or F’s on my transcript, but I treated myself like less than a person and more like a machine that was supposed to be working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I failed myself as a person and a student. 

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    In the journal article, Overcoming Education Failure, author John Martin Rich discusses an interesting perspective about educational failure. “In terms of success criteria, they too are usually stated too narrowly…whether they take the form of overcoming discipline problems, having students master the fundamentals, or scoring at a desired level…of standardized achievement tests.” The concept of failure cannot exist without the existence of success. Since this statement is true, it must also be true that educators ought to alter what they perceive to be textbook success in the classroom. Rich continues by saying, “...the criteria need expansion if it is assumed that becoming an educated person involves more than these outcomes.”  

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    Success should be subjective rather than objective. If looked at in a narrow view like Rich previously stated, then the concept of failure will too. These two notions go hand in hand and it is nearly impossible to discuss one without taking the other in consideration. In academic settings, you are seldom to find conversations about failing unless it is merely a teacher telling students not to rather than offering advice on how to work through it and giving solutions that the students might actually respond to. Going back to what Rich said about the criteria of success and how it needs to be expanded, I couldn't agree more. If we open our minds and start considering educational success as more than just graduating, getting a good GPA and going to college, then the standards for failure will also become more broad and hopefully understood to a greater extent. 

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      Educational success and failure can be looked at through a very small lens. Maybe it would be easier to define those two concepts by a few factors rather than many. This will do a disservice to students at all levels in their education however. Human beings are complex creatures by nature, so why should we expect the very thing all humans are required to do to be simple? It is not simple and most likely never will be. And that is ok as long as we have teachers, administrators and policy makers who will do their part in merely trying to redefine the meaning of failure in school systems.