A Failure to Fail
As you can tell from my last blog, imagination is very important to me — and more importantly, its future. The most critical part of the imagination’s development is during youth. I worry about this stage the most, since our youth listen to what adults have to say.
About four years ago, I ran an aquatic exercise program for individuals with disabilities. More often than not, I had to substitute and teach swim classes as well. At the end of the class, I would hold a contest to see which kid could do the worst possible dive. Each child would be judged on how terrible the dive looked, and the lower the score, the better. For example, a zero was the best score a child could receive for the absolute worst dive. The kids absolutely loved it, but here is my point: Each time we played this game, at least a few concerned parents would comment, “Why are they doing bad dives? Shouldn’t they be doing good dives?” I tried to explain to the parents that children need to learn failure is not a bad thing. In fact, I encouraged it. I always loved the blank looks on their faces, as they could not grasp the point.
After they finish kindergarten and preschool, we bombard children with the idea failure is unacceptable. Schools apply a very strict system that rewards them for not failing. The pressure not to fail is also endorsed by the parents as seen in my example above. A child’s ability is boiled down to four letters: A, B, C and D. The reason I did not mention F is because there is no such thing as failure.
Pick up any child development or psychology book and read about the amount of growth and development a child goes through during the first few years of life. It’s far more advanced than any other stage in human development. But why? Look how frequently failure occurs during early childhood development. Since we do not have fine and gross motor skills, we must learn by error. We fail, and then we try again until we get it right. Each time the child fails, he/she learns something and refines his/her actions until he gets it right. Failure is just as important as achievement — they have equal value. To say failure is not important is like saying the head side of a coin is more valuable than the tail side. They exist together to create one function: experience. Whether or not we fail or succeed, we gain experience from both situations. Isn’t knowing what not to do just as important as knowing what to do? This is why we should not solely focus on achievement as a means of growth, as growing only through achievement is literally impossible.
I get so sad when I see adults who fail once and give up. Why do adults do this? Is it because as children, they were hammered so hard to consider failure unacceptable? Do they think it’s better to avoid the experience altogether in order to avoid failing? In truth, I see a graveyard of dreams — dreams never chased because of that single word: failure. Not even Tim Burton could create a more depressing and morbid cemetery. So, I beg you all, please grab a shovel and dig up your graveyard of dreams. Please dig them up! And if you happen to fail…well then, good for you!
Michael Erkiletian