On: Failure

I totally failed the other week. Flunked. Crashed. Wiped out. Came a cropper. Misfired. Slumped. Floundered. Laid an egg. Was found wanting. Did not come up to scratch. The muster was most definitely not passed.

My failure was a financial error, a mathematical boo-boo, where I managed to undercharge my beloved charges for a House trip to the tune of around £8 each. “Mere pennies!”, I hear you cry, but there are 60 boys in my boarding house so, well, you do the maths (because, it turns out, I can’t).

Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to hear that my lack of numerical nous has continued well into adulthood. For one term only as I studied for a Standard Grade in Maths (the Scottish equivalent of a GCSE), I was in the top Maths set. In the end-of-term test, I achieved approximately 3% (that might be an exaggeration: perhaps it was 5%) and it became apparent that I had learned next to nothing that term. I know some of you are clutching your pearls in horror. How could a student at a good school, who had been streamed into the top set, do so badly? Some of you might diagnose me as having mathephobia or, perhaps, dyscalculia. Surely, I had some educational need that was not being met. Perhaps, the teaching was woeful and you, like Mr Miyagi in the 1984 classic, ‘The Karate Kid’, believe there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher.

There might be a grain of truth in what you say, dear reader, but the bare bones of it is this: I found Maths excruciatingly, mind-numbingly, skull-crushingly, boring and, not really liking to exert myself, I didn’t try an iota to do well. I managed to blag my way through that first term, until the spotlight of the end-of-term test was shone upon me, because I sat next to Heather McSniven*, Maths whizz, who did all of my work for me.

This is not a blog post about Maths, but I know you’re now invested in my quantitative quandary, so I’ll conclude the digital drama for you. I went down a Maths set, had a teacher who understood I despised her subject and who made it accessible for me and, as a result, I got a top grade in Standard Grade Maths. Results day was the best day of my life (sorry, Jon, our wedding day comes a hard-fought second) as I realised I had actually done well in the Worst Subject in the World™️ and would never have to study Maths again. Hooray! That was until I went to University and discovered statistics and completed a heavily quantitative PhD. Contrary to existing research on the subject, my previous loathing of Maths did not result in a similar aversion to statistical data. Go figure. Not for the first time, in my life, I am an anomaly.

I say all this to let you behind the curtain a little (after all, we’ve come this far together) and to give you some background to my most recent failure. I must confess, I am embarrassed to have made so basic an error in my calculations and, next week, I will have to revert to Accounts with my tail firmly between my legs and confess my mistake. In the grand scheme of things, my failure might appear trivial. But, I will now have to mop up the remaining charges from the House budget and face the realisation that other people (and people who are good with numbers at that; namely our accountants) will know that I cannot add up. How mortifying.

It got me thinking, though: how do we respond to failure, and how can we assist the children in our care with overcoming failures in their own lives?

I think the first thing is to acknowledge that failure is part of life. Some of us might breeze through this life more easily than others but, sooner or later, a bump will come in the road. This might be of our own making, as in my case, or it might be bad luck, a quirk of circumstance. But failure will come, and we must be able to deal with it: be able to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and carry on. I have been reading a book over the Easter holidays (I know, an actual book. Reading for pleasure: the novelty!) called ‘The Coddling of the American Mind‘. Stay tuned for a book review, as I cannot recommend it highly enough for those of us who are parents or educators. The essential premise is that we must encourage the children in our care to develop resilience so that, when challenges come, they do not melt like proverbial snowflakes but become stronger and tougher, able to successfully navigate life’s “bumpy road”. I don’t know about you, but I do see some children (and adults) who struggle to deal with difficulties, in whatever form they come. Minor inconveniences appear as crippling hardship, and failures are treated as insurmountable deficiencies. We must all recognise that life does not always go our way: failure is the counterpoint to success.

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, gave a speech at his son’s high school graduation in 2017 which has been titled “I Wish you Bad Luck“. It is a superb speech, delivered with humour and some touching sentimentality, but it has, at its heart, a difficult message. Chief Justice Roberts wishes his listeners, among other things, bad luck, injustice, unfairness, betrayal, and loss. For them to experience such things, he says, enables them to appreciate success, the value of justice, the importance of loyalty, and friendship. He says, “whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes”. Failure is a part of life.

Secondly, as Chief Justice Roberts entreats, let’s “see the message in…misfortunes”. We need to reflect on what led up to our particular failure. I am embarrassed to acknowledge that the accounting error is entirely my fault. Sure, I can blame the fact I was tired at the end of a very busy term for my clumsy calculations, or point to the absence of administrative support in the boarding house, or use the excuse of having a to-do list as long as my arm to justify my mistake. But, the cold hard truth is that I made a mistake when doing a simple calculation. The fault was entirely mine. Sometimes, outside factors do, of course, contribute to our failures, and we must all be mindful to ensure that structural inequalities are minimised and that our workplaces and schools are supportive and enabling. However, let’s not fall into the trap of externalising our problems.

When children in our care flunk a test, do they blame it all on having a bad day or claim that they haven’t been taught properly by that supply teacher? When our sports teams lose a match, is it because the referee was blatantly biased? Sometimes, those things are true. But more often, I tentatively suggest, it is because they just haven’t revised very effectively, or trained very hard, or acknowledged in the first place they find that topic difficult. If we cannot reflect on our own contribution to our failure, and if we do not encourage children to do the same, are we and they not in danger of repeating the pattern time and again?

Finally, after acknowledging that failure is inevitable, and reflecting on how it came to pass, we need to learn from our experiences. The next time I submit charges for House trips, I will remember to include the cost of the hired bus (see, I told you it was a basic error!). I might ask a colleague to cast a quick eye over my calculations to spot any obvious mistakes. I might delegate the administration of trips to a more sum-savvy member of the House team. Whatever measures I implement, I am determined to not repeat the mistake and, thus, not be known as the Can’t Countess of Oundle.

When the children we look after fail at something, let’s help them reflect on what went wrong and then implement strategies to avoid the same outcome in the future. It’s okay for them to be embarrassed, or to feel disappointed that they haven’t done as well as they hoped in a particular situation. Let’s allow them time to lick their wounds, and then encourage them to use this experience to become better at that particular subject or sport or competition or skill; to become more sensitive in relationships; to become more realistic in their future ambitions. Instead of externalising problems, and allowing young people to habitually blame circumstances or environments or other people, let’s help them develop the tools they need to approach life and all its many hurdles with confidence. When we and our charges look back on the successes we have made, then I hope we will say with John Roberts that “it was not just success, but not being afraid to fail that brought [us] to this point”.

*Name changed for privacy but, if you know her, you know her.