It is heartbreaking how our society perceives failures. It tends to celebrate the achievers but shames the ones who fail. It is obvious why so many young kids tend to reel under stress and anxiety during exam season. It is a shame how kids failing in the exams are left alone to suffer and in many cases, this suffering leads to depression, mental illness, and suicide.
But a teacher from Kerala, VP Prabhakaran, the principal of a school Kozhikode, is trying to change society’s mindset about failures. He recently took to Facebook to post a heartwarming note after one of his students failed in an exam.
Rather than letting the student suffer alone, this inspiring teacher asserted that it wasn’t the failure of the boy alone, but the failure of his teachers as well.
As per News18, the results for the Class-10 board exams recently came out and there was only one student who failed. VP Prabhakaran, the principal didn’t call the rest of the students but called the boy who had failed to check on him to see if he was okay.
“I feel I am the other person who failed along with him,” he wrote.
The principal also shared how he along with other teachers had thought that no one would fail this time. They paid extra attention to students who needed help. Some couldn’t write the alphabet properly. He recalled how every student was taught with so much love and care. He wrote:
“Maybe those kids have never experienced this love in life before. The teachers may never have got a chance to give such a stage and care,”
He further added:
“Maybe there was something lacking in the way we cared for the student because all of us teachers also failed with him,”
In his inspiring post, the teacher also questioned the idea of success and defeat. He claimed how many successful people in the world didn’t go to school.
“What are victory and defeat? All the success is celebrated when we get 100%. But we know many people who have failed in exams but have become a big success in life later.”
Here is a rough translation of his Facebook post:
Netizens came forward to laud this teacher for his inspiring approach towards handling failure. Many expressed how we need more teachers like him to change the attitude towards failure.
At IFORHER, we are in awe of this great teacher and hope many more would seek inspiration and would change their mindset towards failure. Because in the end, failures are the stepping stones to success.