ON A HOLIDAY a few years ago I met a couple of PE teachers from Nottingham. They told me about the fully-equipped gym in their school, fitted with ropes and wall bars. None of which the children were allowed to use, because they might fall off.
It’s a problem that faces most schools today. My youngest son came home from school one day – he was aged about six – and told me he’d been awarded two gold stars. ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘What for?’ He just shrugged. ‘No idea.’
When children are routinely told that everything they do is fantastic, when they’re awarded prizes for no reason, and when they’re led to believe they always succeed in everything they attempt, they’re not being protected from failure: they’re being systematically underprepared for the real world.
In the real world, people do fail. Frequently. It’s the ability to recover from failure that makes us stronger, that enables us to strive for success. Children who aren’t permitted to fail at school will find the outside world a real shock.
