“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
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Failures are ladders that lead to success. We all face failures in life at some point in time. We must not shy away from them but take it up as a challenge and overcome it.I clearly remember, I was in Grade 7 and Science stream was bifurcated into Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Amongst the three, I never developed a liking for Biology. And it was very evident from my first term report card . Never in my life had seen a red line under any subject marks and there it was blaring on my face. A 39 with a red line in Biology. I did not know what hit me and how was I going to show it to my parents. It was going to be a huge embarrassment for all of us.
A very scared teenager, after shedding innumerable tears, I handed over the report to my mother. And needless to say what followed this. My mother was shocked and decided to meet Ms Anne our Biology teacher. She tried to explain to her that her daughters had never failed and it was just a matter of 1 grace mark to make it a passing score. Ms Anne turned down her request and asked us to leave. We returned home dejected and I felt humiliated. It was going to be difficult to face all my friends who had scored well.
The next term was 3 months away and I was determined to “Show” to Ms Anne that I was upset with her. I studied hard and finally appeared for the second term exams. And voila!! My report said 77/100. I had a smirk on my face as I took the report card from her, she was also our class teacher.
Elated I reached home that I had proved to Ms Anne that I could earn marks on my own and I didn’t need that 1 mark from her as grace. When my mother went to meet the teacher in the PTM, my mother proudly showed her my report card and Ms Anne smiled and said,”This is the only reason I had not given her that one mark. If I had passed her with grace marks, she would have never worked hard to do it on her own.” That motive I may not have understood then, but it stayed with me for life. Salute to such teachers who don’t take shortcuts to provide desired guidance and direction to make their students achieve success.
I have tried to inculcate the same in my children too. Not to shy away from failures and rather take it up as a challenge and overcome.
