For almost all of my teaching career, and perhaps even longer, there has been so much emphasis on success. Children are praised for sitting still for 5 minutes, for saying thank you, for picking up a piece of litter... all good things, but surely our expectations of children haven't slipped so much that we are now surprised when they do things that were considered normal when we were younger.
I am probably sounding like a typical old duffer now but there is another side. I firmly believe that the most important thing that we should be giving our pupils is the opportunity to fail. This will sound like educational heresy to many, but I really do believe that we need to create an atmosphere in our classrooms where it is perfectly acceptable to make mistakes and get things wrong. Mistakes need to be seen as learning opportunities rather than problems.
Another key thing about the over-emphasis on success is that we have created a generation which prefers not to try something than risk getting it wrong. I am sure that most teachers will recognise this. The one thing that pupils will need in their future lives is resilience and far to many otherwise excellent teachers are taking this away every time they prevent pupils make mistakes.
