The Freedom To Fail

TOPIC:
Are these phenomena real threats to freedom? Do they make an impact on your life? Would the alternative (e.g. deregulating things like farmers’ markets) be worse than our present circumstances? What might the future look like if these trends continue or accelerate? Are these trends even the real problem or are they merely symptoms of some larger threat?

The Freedom to Fail

                The freedom to willingly fail threatens our collective freedom as a society, and this willingness begins the instant a child is born. It would seem that most parents do their best to protect their children from harmful things, and provide their child with enough so that he or she has the means to succeed in life. Its safe to say that little to no parents want their child to face failures or disappointments that can accompany life, because they worry about the negative impact that it may have upon their child, as well as contradiction for what they want for their child.
This sentiment that parents have towards failure in regards to their children actually hinders their children, and can keep them from taking that extra step in life. The children can become so paranoid of failing that it may keep them from accomplishing long term goals that they have, because they feel as though they might fail. Life is not meant to be picture perfect, because in reality no such picture exists. As Henry Ford once said, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” If you are not given that opportunity you begin to learn to settle for what is average, and not take risks by going beyond the expected.
               In order for one to achieve ultimate success, they must first be able to recognize their failures throughout life. This recognition needs to begin as young as elementary school. Instead of punished children for their failures, which will actually set them further behind, we need to educate them on learning from their failures, and not view failure as solely something negative. When a child is punished verbally or physically because he or she has failed, it undoubtedly lowers the child’s self esteem, but if this issue is approached in a different way, it may produce positive results. Just passing students will result to a bigger failure in the long run, and even though it may solve the issue as for the child “just passing” in the short run it will create a false sense of security for the student. Standards need to be placed for children and need to be met through different levels of interaction and learning. Until students master the standards placed, they should not be able to move on. 
                 A way to fix this is assigning mentors to children, a positive role model that can help them along the way when the child stumbles upon hard classes. If this is to much for the school, the school should implement a class on different strategies that children can learn from effectively to achieve academic success. Once students are taught to view failure as something not solely negative, the freedom to fail will continue on being endangered. For example what was average in my elementary school was way below average in other schools around the state. This becomes a major problem when students hit college because when you as the student realizes that the work that is given to you seems much harder than the work you faced in high school you begin to fear of failure and would much rather drop out than fail at a certain subject. The results is being seen now with drop out rates increasing, teen pregnancies increasing, and students settling for just a high school diploma.