The main purpose of students is to get education. But they should not ignore sports as well. If games are blocking the way of education, they should avoid games. In this way, they would succeed in preventing their failure.
We hate the word, and rightfully so. It goes against everything our country was built upon. In 1776 a rag-tag bunch of rebels who believed in something bigger than themselves signed the ultimate “Stick-it-to-the-man” document – the Declaration of Independence. We fought the Brits, who would have clearly had the upper hand had we played by the rules. And we won. Go America. (Yes, I know this is a revised and simplified history, but it works)
Since then, we’ve been more or less a nation that values winning above just about anything else. We are successful. We for the most part believe ourselves to be the best country in the world. We hate failure so much, in fact, that now in most children’s sports leagues, no one loses. Everyone gets a trophy.
But at some point for every student, that augmented pseudo-success reality where no one loses and everyone succeeds goes away. All students fail to some degree or another. In fact – as we’ve noted in several places on our website – Harvard suggests America has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. Clearly failure is happening at some point.
Sometimes this isn’t bad. It’s just part of life. Things come up. More important priorities require putting aside academics for the time being. Sometimes family emergencies keep students from getting the time they need to get work done. We’re not talking about those times today, though. What we’re talking about in failure is when a student doesn’t live up to their potential academically despite having every opportunity to do so. This isn’t one of those rare occasions where other priorities deserve more time or attention.
We’re not going to dodge the reality of failure. We’re going to face it head on. All students at some point fail to live up to their potential academically. The question before us today is why those students fail. Only after understanding why students fail can we begin addressing the problem. We suggest the following four main reasons students fail: