Can there be grace in failure?
Failure is something with which we all struggle. No one looks forward to it -- that's for sure. But our Episcopal faith teaches us that out of failure we can emerge stronger. The Rev. Dan Heischman, a friend and Executive Director of the National Association of Episcopal Schools, reflects this week on the subject of dealing with failure, and I want to share it with you:
Is Failure Making a Comeback?
In July of this year, an article appeared in Atlantic Monthly (“How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” by Lori Gottleib) in which the writer claimed that the “cult of self-esteem,” including the desire to rescue our children from unhappy experiences, was not equipping young people for the tasks of adulthood. Drawing upon the sources of many writers in the field, she concluded that, in shielding them from discomfort, failure, and struggle, we are actually making it harder for our children to grow up. Then, this past week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine carried an article about how students’ future success and happiness may depend more on their experience with failure and setbacks than the avoidance of them (“The Character Test,” by Paul Tough, September 18, 2011).
Both of these articles have been read with great interest and already have prompted a good deal of conversation. Perhaps one of the questions emerging from these discussions might be, “Are we beginning to reacquaint ourselves with the educative value of failure?” As Mark Roosevelt, the new president of the revived Antioch College, remarks (a few pages later, in another article in this issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine), “Our teachers need to tell students, ‘Trying and failing is OK.’” It is probably too early to know, in a culture that has been quite averse to the educative value of failure, whether or not we are collectively ready to reverse course and embrace failure’s place in the development of young people. To my way of thinking, it is probably going to take more than the simple conclusions, “It is good for them,” or, “It builds character,” to stem the tide.
It will need something that—at the risk of sounding smug—Episcopal schools possess, namely, a theological context in which failure is seen and experienced as the beginning of new life. From our theological perspective, this is part of God’s pattern of redemption. We may not look forward to it, nor see its value when experiencing it, but our tradition provides the undergirding theological framework that allows failure to take its rightful place in the experiences of life and help give meaning to life.
As the prayer for young people, in the Book of Common Prayer, puts it, “Help them [young people] take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for new start.” I would say that is a pretty sound foundation upon which to greet whatever comeback failure may be making!
Amen to that! Have a blessed day! Don+
Is Failure Making a Comeback?
In July of this year, an article appeared in Atlantic Monthly (“How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” by Lori Gottleib) in which the writer claimed that the “cult of self-esteem,” including the desire to rescue our children from unhappy experiences, was not equipping young people for the tasks of adulthood. Drawing upon the sources of many writers in the field, she concluded that, in shielding them from discomfort, failure, and struggle, we are actually making it harder for our children to grow up. Then, this past week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine carried an article about how students’ future success and happiness may depend more on their experience with failure and setbacks than the avoidance of them (“The Character Test,” by Paul Tough, September 18, 2011).
Both of these articles have been read with great interest and already have prompted a good deal of conversation. Perhaps one of the questions emerging from these discussions might be, “Are we beginning to reacquaint ourselves with the educative value of failure?” As Mark Roosevelt, the new president of the revived Antioch College, remarks (a few pages later, in another article in this issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine), “Our teachers need to tell students, ‘Trying and failing is OK.’” It is probably too early to know, in a culture that has been quite averse to the educative value of failure, whether or not we are collectively ready to reverse course and embrace failure’s place in the development of young people. To my way of thinking, it is probably going to take more than the simple conclusions, “It is good for them,” or, “It builds character,” to stem the tide.
It will need something that—at the risk of sounding smug—Episcopal schools possess, namely, a theological context in which failure is seen and experienced as the beginning of new life. From our theological perspective, this is part of God’s pattern of redemption. We may not look forward to it, nor see its value when experiencing it, but our tradition provides the undergirding theological framework that allows failure to take its rightful place in the experiences of life and help give meaning to life.
As the prayer for young people, in the Book of Common Prayer, puts it, “Help them [young people] take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for new start.” I would say that is a pretty sound foundation upon which to greet whatever comeback failure may be making!
Amen to that! Have a blessed day! Don+
posted by Don+ @ 12:07 PM
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