Failing well is a skill. Letting girls do it gives them critical practice coping with a negative experience. It also gives them the opportunity to develop a kind of confidence and resilience that can only be forged in times of challenge.
Interpretation
Learning to fail productively helps build resilience and confidence, particularly in young girls.
This quote emphasizes the importance of allowing young girls to experience failure as it equips them with necessary life skills. Facing challenges and setbacks enables them to develop resilience, confidence, and the ability to cope with adversity, ultimately preparing them for future obstacles. In this sense, failure is not just a negative experience but a valuable opportunity for growth.
In practice
In a workshop on building resilience, I would quote this to emphasize the value of learning from failure.
You don't learn how to say 'hey, I have a problem,' but you also don't learn how to hear it. There's a total breakdown of how females talk to one another. It's very disconcerting for leadership because it means you don't talk to each other; you talk about each other.
All around me, I see girls forced to become rat racers in the College Application Industrial Complex, the subculture where students must craft themselves into the perfect specimens for college admission and often lose their authenticity, love of learning, and sense of self in the process.
When I did the original research for 'Odd Girl Out,' I asked every bullied girl I interviewed to tell me what she needed most from her family. The answer truly surprised me. It wasn't having the best solutions, calling the school, or trying to act like everything was okay. It was empathy.
Give a man a fish, feed home for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed for a lifetime.
In an age in which infidelity abounds, do we observe parents carefully instructing their children in the principles of faith which they profess? Or do they furnish their children with arguments for the defense of that faith? ...it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are unable to defend.
It is not my wish to lounge about the college and fatten on a fellowship all my days. I am always trying to look upon a college life as a medium not an end.
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
My father paid for my education; then he made it clear that I was on my own.
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