Metropol

LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. "We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said.

"But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary," he said.

The PAT said it would debate the proposal at a conference next week.

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Why are teachers, sociologists, psychologists, etc, so removed from the real world when they come out with stuff like this?

Madness.

Why are teachers, sociologists, psychologists, etc, so removed from the real world when they come out with stuff like this?

That's the exact point - they ain't in the real world.

What sort of teacher tells kids they're failures anyway? A very bad teacher, surely?

Still, I wouldn't want to appear namby-pamby, so: KILL ALL CHILDREN!!!

Jenny wrote:What sort of teacher tells kids they're failures anyway? A very bad teacher, surely?

It's not about that, it's about Dennis Chav getting 2 out of 50 in an exam and being told "that's just deffered success" - why not tell him he's failed?!

Jenny wrote:What sort of teacher tells kids they're failures anyway? A very bad teacher, surely?

Still, I wouldn't want to appear namby-pamby, so: KILL ALL CHILDREN!!!

Jenny, I would've expected better from you. That's a deliberately emotive misreading of it! You naughty woman!

Failure is part of life, as is success. One has to take the rough with the smooth, and a dozen other cliches.

To tell a child that s/he has not failed their exam but has deferred success of it is patronising to the child. Nobody is suggesting that a child is told they are a "failure" as a person if they don't pass the odd exam - it's just saying to the child that they "failed" this exam/coursework by not meeting the expected standards. One can fail at some things but be successful in general.

Just like the removal of competition sport from some schools in the 80s (a policy I believe has since been reversed), it's pointless not exposing children to concepts such as achievement and competition, as it's what they'll have all their lives.

johnnyboy wrote:LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. "We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said.

"But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary," he said.

The PAT said it would debate the proposal at a conference next week.

Link

Why are teachers, sociologists, psychologists, etc, so removed from the real world when they come out with stuff like this?

Madness.

By the time you get to my age and have the direction of the local village drunk you stop caring. Plus, when you say "you failed" they dont go down into a spiral of depression they generally realise "well I probably should have revised"

Generally, if you stop being so fucking soft and treating kids like "poor ickle babies"... well, the outcome would be.... predictable.

Why are teachers, sociologists, psychologists, etc, so removed from the real world when they come out with stuff like this?

Why are you so far removed from the real world when you think you can generalise on an entire group of people based on their occupation?

For your information, I am a teacher (a teacher in training anyway) and I find this namby-pamby nonsense as repulsive and pointless as you do.

There are utter idiots in the sytem whose daft dumbed down approach to discipline is the cause of failure and social collapse in an allready failing school system and a society which is now seeing it's second generation of dysfuntional, barely literate chavs in innumerable proportions, but they do not in any way represent the views of every teacher in the country.

It's like when I was in school revising for my GCSE's 6 years ago. The teachers would tell us all that "anything above a grade F was a GCSE pass".

I seem to remember getting a 'U' for Unclassified for my design technology course! I don't include that on my CV - for obvious reasons

It's like when I was in school revising for my GCSE's 6 years ago. The teachers would tell us all that "anything above a grade F was a GCSE pass".

What I find most laughable about pretty much all educational reform - including proposing claptrap like this, is that such proposals remain confined to the complulsory education sector (i.e. up to GCSE level).

Beyond that, the system remains as Victorian as ever. For instance, this year I had the misfortune to fail (yes, I don't mind using that word, despite being a teacher) a piece of coursework. The coursework was failed because I did not make a submission, owing to overwheliming personal issues at the time. I applied, and was subsequently granted, extenuating circumstances which have afforded me another shot at the work over the summer.

That's the reality of the situation. But what did my official transcript say? It said 'FAILED and MUST ATTEMPT to recompensate the modules indicated on the transcript BEFORE progression will be considered' (the capital letters were actually used). Where is the progressive 'progression deferred' in that? Nowhere.

This to me smacks of much equal opportunities legislation. If you're some utter scum who quite frankly should be shot at birth and thus never get the opportunity to contaminate the planet with the utter shite that you are, then every equal opportunities policy and reformation of any institution with which you, your siblings or your offspring have contact will apply to you.

But if you're decent enough to survive that, to actually get 5 A-C's at GCSE (which, with the exception of children with severe learning difficulties, is within the grasp of everyone and cannot fail to be achieved except through bone-idleness), and to actually try to do something with your life, then you suddenly become judged to an entirely different set of rules, with much less political correctness and with some extremely serious consequences for failure by the same people who would condemn such actions as being barbaric and outdated if you were 16.

Political Correctness is just rediculous these days.

I am sick of Equal Oppourtunities wank, as well as the namby-pamby shitty world that we live in.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I don't think I've come off worse for it.

James Martin wrote:I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I don't think I've come off worse for it.

really?