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May you fail often

Jurriaan Kamp, Editor-in-Chief.

Photo: Christopher Lucas

In this month’s issue, retired schoolteacher John Taylor Gatto explains what’s wrong with modern education: Schools teach children to obey. They espouse the things we—the ruling generation—want kids to know. No wonder most schools are pressure cookers where bored teachers meet bored children. Obviously, education is failing its objective based on the Latin root of the word: educare, to nourish. Schools should challenge the natural creativity of children, inviting them to follow their inborn curiosity rather than pushing them through textbooks. Schools should enable students to learn and understand instead of burdening them with facts that don’t pertain to them.

Modern education is a wasted investment. It doesn’t deliver what we need the most: creative answers to the challenges of our times. Not uncommonly, possible solutions get bogged down in contradictions: To fight poverty, we need economic growth, but that growth threatens the natural environment we need for future prosperity. To break such deadlocks, we don’t need standardized minds shaped by standard national curricula. On the contrary, we need brilliant, creative minds that see through the apparent contradictions and find ways to inspire solutions.

It isn’t a surprise that many of the people who’ve had the greatest influence on our times were—from the perspective of education—failures. Albert Einstein didn’t finish elementary school. Bill Gates was a college dropout. Walt Disney, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Virgin Group entrepreneur Richard Branson never got degrees. And I’m sure some of you relate to my experience: Many of my brightest classmates aren’t among the most successful or inspiring people I know.

Gatto’s call for a revolution in education dovetails with our cover story on the importance of failure. Real learning comes with ups and downs, because it’s about experimenting. There’s no successful experimentation without failure. And please don’t confuse failing a standardized test with that all-important “experimental” failure. A failed experiment may lead to an insight that breaks the path to success. A failed exam only means you aren’t bright enough in the eyes of the system.

The magazine you’re reading is a success born of many failures. Winston Churchill, former UK prime minister and a school dropout, was right: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Indeed, I’ve learned that the fear of looming failure also drives the next attempt. So I wish you well when I conclude, May you, and your children, fail often.