'I imagine we would all agree on the things education should not be. It should not, surely, make one quarter of all kids drop out and be lost to learning. It should not, surely, make children feel so bad about themselves that they hurt themselves, or shut down, or become lacking in any confidence about themselves.'
What is the meaning of success? What do you do when the system says your child is a failure? Why is it so hard for parents to talk to each other about how badly their kids are doing? They can't ALL be doing brilliantly, so why aren't we talking about the kids who struggle to fit the narrow expectations of the education system?
We all talk about how much pressure there is on kids today; we all shake our heads at what seems to be an epidemic of anxiety . . . so why is it so hard to change our expectations?
Moreover, when there are children who want to harm themselves because of stress about school, how can we fail to act?
Beautiful Failures explores, through personal experience and journalistic investigation, the way the education system both fails the kids who struggle and puts enormous, mental-health-threatening pressure on all kids, including those who 'succeed'. It looks at the way parenting today feeds into this pressure cooker, and how the society we have built makes it hard to be average, or worse.
In a world of 'winners' and 'losers' – and in an education system that has become about competing for the top spots rather than learning for the joy of it – we urgently need to rethink the meaning of success. For the sake of our children. For the sake of ourselves.
About the Author
Lucy Clark is a journalist and editor with 31 years experience in newspapers and magazines in Sydney, London and New York. She was most recently the editor of the news and opinion website The Hoopla, and has worked as a literary editor, features writer, and opinion columnist. She is now a Senior Editor at Guardian Australia.
Review by Caroline Baum
I know only one parent among the dozens in my circle who has ever described her child to me as 'pretty average'. She did so lovingly, affectionately, humorously, but without any of those humblebrag sighs of parents who complain of the burdens and responsibilities of having a child who is some kind of genius. It was such a breath of fresh air. Let's face it, most children are not atom-splitting Nobel Prize winners. Which makes them no less worthy of love. But the prevailing attitude seems to be that we must treat all children as gifted. It's not doing most of them any favours.
You may remember a piece that Clark wrote about her daughter struggling with her schooling a couple of years ago. It touched a raw nerve and was sensibly picked up by a publisher as the basis for a book looking at how we measure success in school kids (coinciding with that terrific series on ABC TV called Revolution School). Where does the pressure on schoolkids come from? Parents? Teachers? Peers? And how do we reboot the already struggling education system to reduce pressure and allow kids to flourish and find their true potential.
Tackling these questions is not easy as there are so many causes and roots to the problem. Unrealistic aspirations on the part of parents are just one of many issues that Clark attempts to analyse using both personal experience and journalistic investigation. So many parents will thank her for her honesty and her multi-faceted approach to a complex problem. This is a much needed conversation starter for everyone who cares about children, schooling and the benchmarks by which we measure achievement.
