Failure Apparently IS an Option

Failure…apparently IS an option.

I see it every day. Smart young minds choosing not to try.

It used to be students who had a hard time learning in school would act up, and become behavior problems, but you could get through to many of them—perhaps most of them.

A dash of extrinsic motivation combined with building rapport and a strong relationship, they cared what you knew as soon as they knew that you cared.

Enter into the picture what appears to be a reinforcement-resistant strain of student; even the best attempt at forming bonds does not necessarily meet resistance, but rather indifference.

You talk to the parents and it’s obvious that they love their kids and want what is best for them.

You talk to their other teachers, and it isn’t as if they aren’t trying to get through to the students, because they are trying every day.

Yet it seems as though it has become a norm to choose to fail in school.

Many are students who are provided extra time and extra help, and extra adults who show that they care….

Yet some of them choose to fail just the same.

I say choose to fail, because there is more at play here than students who are having a hard time learning, who have just given up.

We have students who are fully capable, with some supports in place, of being successful in school.

Yet, to fail is OK.

To not turn in assignments is acceptable.

To not take advantage of opportunities to bring their grades up is A–OK with them.

And who is held accountable?

I don’t think that I am alone when I say that I was raised in a family where there were expectations that you did your best in school. It was not an “or else” scenario. I just learned early on that trying your hardest in school, despite the challenges, was what successful people did. I did have successful role models at home, and I believe the expectation was always that I would go to college. However, it was not beat into me in any way. It was, rather, engrained as I grew, as I learned, and as I experienced life.

I was accountable for my grades and my performance in school, both academically and behaviorally. I just knew it. Moreover, most of the time, I think I tried to achieve the best I could for me, and to make someone at home proud.

How are students of today held accountable for their performance in school if they simply choose to fail?

It is a question I ask myself every day as I try to stare down the failure my students face and tell my students they can overcome. But the first step is to TRY.

I recognize that many students at the age of the students that I work with are young and they have not found their driving force yet, or the things in school that they are passionate about.

It just troubles me greatly the fear that some of them may never stay in school long enough to find their driving force; their passion in school.

I give them 110 percent every day, and for some of them, it seems like a mountain I cannot surmount.

Yet I’ll come back every day with the knowledge that a difference with even one kid every day is an accomplishment.

Are there any other educators that feel like I do?

Has failure for some really become an acceptable norm?