Educational style varies across different parts of the world. In Asia, education and instruction can contain harsher disciplinary aspects, as students are typically required to abide by strict rules. In North America and Europe, some educational systems focus on encouraging creativity, independence, and innovation among students (typically in the Scandinavian countries), while other places like the United Kingdom, have a reputation for combining a broad liberal arts approach with strict rules and regulations.

Regardless of the different approaches, however, what many educational systems have in common is that they often focus on “failure” by emphasizing how  students have not achieved something. But against this approach, the education scholar Carol Dweck has argued that education should not just emphasize failure but should always add a “yet.” By this, she means that educators should make sure to tell students ‘You have not achieved your goals, yet’ instead of saying ‘You have failed.’ The ‘yet’ implies that the student will eventually meet their goals, which could greatly help them in picking themselves up again after experiencing failure.

Today, many education systems may tend to emphasize the student’s failure and hope that by ‘scolding’ the student she will work harder against the next setback. As Dweck argues, however,this may not be the most optimal way to address failure because when an educator only emphasizes a student’s failure, it demoralizes a student as the student may feel that her teacher is denying her ability to succeed. When talked down by a teacher, someone who is supposed to nurture growth and learning, a student may subconsciously feel that she will not succeed, and hence become less confident and less willing to try 

This is when ‘yet’ becomes a powerful tool. As Carol Dweck mentioned, the word ‘yet’ is powerful because it encourages students to continue learning, and boosts confidence by implying that student’s will eventually succeed . To give a personal example, I once did badly on an English test and my teacher did nothing but glare at me and scold me for my bad test score. I felt helpless because the person who was supposed to help me only demoralized me and emphasized my failure. I lost confidence in the subject and felt that I would never be able to do well, turning away from writing. If my teacher would have corrected me, told me that I am not there yet, but encouraged me that I have the potential to do well I would have been more motivated going forward. I could look forward to studying that subject as I believed doing well in English was something achievable. 

This is not to say that “yet” should be used all the time.For instance, there can be some cases where failure should be used to allow students to see their own deficiencies. Some students may be overconfident in their abilities, which may cause more harm than benefits.Such students, for example, may fail to treat their peers and teachers politely because they think they are “too good,” which may cause them to have a negative reputation amongst peers and teachers, negatively hurting their long-term reputation.  In this case, the word ‘failure’ is essential to help the students recognize their deficiencies and take appropriate action to save them from long-term harm.

Ultimately, even though there are situations where it is wise to remind students of their own weaknesses and potential failures, the word failure should also be accompanied by positive affirmation. The word ‘failure’ by itself can be both harmful to students and counter productive, as it will discourage them from getting better at what they “failed” at. Despite the many differences in educational systems across the globe, then, everyone can benefit from ones that focus  more on emphasizing ‘yet’ instead of just the negative aspects of “failure.”