Failure is not an option...

A novel educational concept from England -- the Guardian has the story:

A child does not fail, but defers success
If your children come home with reports suggesting they have been asleep for most of the last school year, do not label them as failures. They have been merely "deferring success". Failure, says Liz Beattie, a retired primary school teacher, is a word that should be deleted from the classroom dictionary, because it can put children off learning.

Mrs Beattie and a colleague will propose abolishing the f-word in a motion to be debated next week in Buxton, Derbyshire, at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers. The motion reads: "Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary, to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'."

Christ on a corn-dog. Talk about raving loony nanny-ism. Fortunately, other saner voices are being raised:

But others feel failure is as important for children as success - deferred or otherwise. "Everyone fails at some time in their lives and it is often in those circumstances that we learn the most," said Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education.

A quick Google turned up the website for the Campaign for Real Education and I very much like what I see... From their website:

The Campaign for Real Education was formed in 1987 by 14 parents and teachers, all of whom were concerned about falling standards and damaging changes in state education which were being forced through without any evidence to support them. Since then, the Campaign has been contacted by thousands of parents, teachers and academics with similar concerns. We now have a nationwide network of supporters and important links with like-minded people in other countries such as America, Australia, Japan and Switzerland.