The following short piece came out of Reuters last week.
“Tuesday July 19, 05:36 PM
Teaching group to consider banning word “fail”
LONDON (Reuters) – The word “fail” should be banned from use in classrooms and replaced with the phrase “deferred success” to avoid demoralising 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 labelling children. “We recognise that children do not necessarily achieve success first time,” he said.
“But I recognise 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.”
I have to admit, a grade of “deferred success” would have made me feel much less “demoralized” about having to retake trig during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. And certainly that F “put me off learning for life.” Who knows how far I would have gone in college had I only received that “DS” instead?
