Oh, Give Me a Break!

I'm all in favor of positive reinforcement, but this is ridiculous.

Reuters has details from London:

The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. "We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said.

"But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary," he said.

The PAT said it would debate the proposal at a conference next week.

Hopefully this proposal will be defeated. I'd hate to have to refer to Dubya's presidency as a "deferred success."