Four letter words in education. And life. Two of them, actually

Decades ago in the old country, when I was in my early teens, a couple--family friends--came to visit with us one summer evening. That was typical of the life then--friends dropped in for conversations and coffee.  After all, it was before the internet, before television, before cellphones, when it was rare to even have landlines at homes.  To visit with friends was the only way to keep in touch.  Almost always, visiting also meant long walks between the homes.

It was the beginning of the summer break and we kids hadn't yet taken off for the annual visit to Sengottai.  Or, perhaps it was one of those rare summers when we stayed put in town.  Bored as we were, even we young folks looked forward to visitors--there were only so many books one could read in a day, and so many fights one could fight with siblings! For the most part, I way preferred school days to those lengthy vacations because I was way less bored when school was in session.  And, of course, there were girls at school, and one girl in particular!

The couple had brought along the youngest of their three sons.  He was excited that he had completed "first standard"--first grade, as we call them here in the new country.  Father teasingly asked him whether he got the report card.  The kid vigorously nodded a yes. Which is when it got hilarious and so memorable that even after all these years, we laugh about that incident--especially when we meet with that family.

"பாசா பைலா?" father teased the kid.  (Did you pass or fail?)

"நான் பைலு" the kid replied right away. (I failed.)

We laugh, and laugh heartily, when we recall that நான் பைலு.

That kid is, of course, a kid no more as much as I am am decades past my teenage.  He is now a successful self-employed businessman in India, often traveling abroad to strike deals.

Those days seem a lot simpler as I now recall them.  We didn't care much about school, which perhaps reflects well on my parents more than anything else.  As long as we kids behaved well, there was nothing they worried us about.  Sure, we siblings fought--after all, that is an unwritten rule in life.  Even there, as long as we boys didn't strike the sister and as long as we boys had only mild fistfights, all was well.

"Try harder" was perhaps something we heard father say every once in a while.  But, mother never cared for what we did or we did not do in school.  What a wonderful way to approach life, instead of constantly nagging kids to do this or the other.

Now, the educator that I am, I try to get across to students many of those aspects of the life that I have lived.  It is not about passing or failing, but is about having tried with all sincerity.  "You want to make sure you gave life your best shot" I told a student yesterday when he met with me in my office.

Given our different abilities, we might do well in physics but not in music even when give it our best shot. Or on the track field. Or maybe in acting. Or cooking.

Perhaps we don't do well in anything at all, which, too, is ok.  We fail in life all the time. We fail in love. In marriage. In careers. Failures are also what life is all about.

Life is about recognizing the failures. Even laughing about them. Like how that innocent kid cared the least that he failed the first grade. (They didn't hold back kids, and automatically promoted them in those early grades.)

But, I worry that I come across as the oddball when I express such sentiments, especially to students, when the prevailing ethos is all about success, which is measured by the GPA. Where failure is not an option even for a kid.

Am all the happier that my childhood was in a different time period.

An unrecognizable teenage me with a few classmates