Epic Fail

At 21, when I first stepped into a classroom to teach, I thought I knew it all. My most important job in the classroom was to inspire all my students so that they could find success. Sixteen years later and I realize that teaching students to succeed is probably not as important as teaching them what to do when they fail.

Philippine culture (and I suppose a lot of other cultures in the world, too) is allergic to failure, especially in the academic setting. I remember that as a student, taking summer class was considered such an embarrassment. I went to college and my course required me to add two summers, whether I failed or not. Whether or not people would ask for an explanation of why I had to continue summer class, I just always offered the information that it was required – lest they get the wrong idea; the wrong idea being that I had flunked a class.

Now that I am a teacher, I realize that flunking a class really isn’t the end of the world. True, I wouldn’t recommend that students flunk their classes, but when they do, I no longer judge them for it.

I suppose it is because I’ve since learned that failure is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. And that there are several factors why students fail. For the most part, in my experience, I’ve found that it’s rarely a lack of intelligence. Most of the time, it’s the inability to manage time, or to cope with a personal issue or really it’s a lack of drive to excel. Sometimes, it’s based on the simple fact that not all students learn at the same rate in the same way.

And the thing is that just because someone fails doesn’t mean he’s a failure. I’ve seen some wonderful success stories of kids who were held back a year or who had to take summer classes all throughout high school find their own way and succeed later on in life. I’ve heard, too, of students who did really well academically but who couldn’t handle the pressures of adulthood. Life is a great equalizer.

As we head into Holy Week, the threat of the failure of Good Friday looms before us. Always, we are confronted with Christ on the cross, the God who died. When we look at the crucified Christ, we are confronted with the pains and sorrows of our own life, of the Good Fridays that we encounter daily. We have all failed at some point in our lives.

But we are not failures.  This we believe as surely as we believe that three days later after Christ’s death, we celebrate His resurrection. And we commemorate what was seemingly the world’s greatest act of failure because it was in fact God’s greatest act of mercy.

The God of mercy has the power to redeem our failures. And in His passion, death and resurrection, we remind ourselves that failures can also be beautiful – if we allow God’s glory to shine through.