My Daughter Doesn’t Know The Word Failure

Posted by: gretchen on January 24, 2007 |

I just returned from the school spelling bee, where my daughter Katelynn was competing for the first time. A fourth grader attending her first year of public school, Katelynn is an exceptional speller. Her teacher told me that out of all the spelling tests they have had this year, Katelynn has only missed a total of about 6 words.

Katelynn's PhotoLast week I attended the grade-level spelling bee, where Katelynn was up against her fourth and fifth grade classmates. She made it through several rounds at that level until she was one of the final ten students left who get to advance to the next level. Even though they have won a spot at the next level, the students continue spelling until they have a final winner. Katelynn’s word in the next round was “failure”. Before she even opened her mouth, I thought “my kids don’t know failure”. We don’t use that word at our house. Sure enough, she misspelled it.

Today, at the school-wide level, Katelynn competed against kids from the fourth through eighth grades, making her one of the youngest students in the spelling bee. She made it through the first three rounds, spelling “lilac”, “stoic” and “waltz”. At this point she was among the final 10 students left on the stage. She continued on spelling “fiesta” and “gallant” until there were 5 students remaining. Her final word was “burglar” which she stumbled over, putting an extra “A” between the G and the L.

So congratulations to Katelynn for finishing in the Top 5 among the seventh and eighth graders. That is quite an accomplishment! B-)

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4 Responses to “My Daughter Doesn’t Know The Word Failure”

  1. #1
    On January 24th, 2007 2:50 pm Kel1 Says:
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    YAAAAY, KATE!! That rocks!! You should be very proud of yourself for doing so well.

    And by the way…failure isn’t such a great word, anyway. ;)

  2. #2
    On January 24th, 2007 9:46 pm Amy Stephen Says:
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    Katelynn - you rock, girl! Fantastic job! Keep working hard — it will take you good places! It’s good that you have not learned “failure!”

  3. #3
    On March 1st, 2007 6:33 am Nesha Says:
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    Congrats dear Kat and all the best for you to be daughter that will make your loving mom and papa proud of you always.
    Anyway my opinion is we have to learn ‘Failure’ also in life,because things don’t work as we expect always no matter how much we try. We should learn how to survive in a failure.But it’s true we should try our best not to fail. ( I like to pay homage to Lord Buddha for teaching us this golden fact of life)

  4. #4
    On March 1st, 2007 12:12 pm gretchen Says:
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    Nesha - thanks for the congrats for Katelynn, I will let her know. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw your post was “failure is an opportunity to succeed another way”. I think I just made that up, but what I mean is that you may fail at something, but that does not make your activity a failure anymore than it makes you as a peron a failure. To me, failure is just a catalyst to recalibrate and find a different route to success. And it does matter how much you “try”. Look at Thomas Edison who had 10,000 attempts before inventing the light bulb. He just noted his failures, made adjustments and tried again. :)

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