The Invisible Staircase

January 28, 2021

My husband David, a math professor, recently forwarded me an email from one of his best graduate students, who takes her classes by logging in remotely from the Middle East. Last May, she took the department's qualifying exam to move on to the next level in the PhD program, but failed. She took it again a few weeks ago, but—counter to everyone's expectations—she failed again. Shortly afterward, David sent her an email encouraging her not to give up, saying that she will surely pass the next time. She responded:

"When I failed the modeling exam back in May, I cried for hours, and stayed in bed for days thinking that how dumb and unworthy I am as a PhD student. I thought I am not meant for PhD. That was the first time in my life failing something as a student. This time, I am not having any of those thoughts and negative feelings. Of course, I would be happier if I have passed the programming exam, but I no longer see myself as a dumb or unworthy student. I feel I have grown into someone who is much more resilient than before, and ready to take new challenges. This picture has been helpful...

David showed me his student's note and the accompanying successpictures graphic that has helped keep her pushing at her dreams. It shows how people can either be weighed down by a series of failures or—after, probably, a little appropriate grieving—they can use their failures as a staircase to eventual success. Think it's a little simplistic? Maybe. But I figured that if a student half my age who lives halfway around the world can be inspired to push through failure by a motivational business poster, so can I, and so can you. Our kids can, too.

The pandemic has given us all plenty of occasions to fail, hasn't it: Millions of kids feel like they're failing at remote learning, and millions of parents feel like they're failing to help their kids through it. But this mass sense of failure is a golden opportunity for kids to learn the secret lesson that no traditional school can afford to teach: Real progress requires failing mostly and succeeding sometimes. It's impossible to do the impossible, but we can't know in advance what's possible, so we just have to keep trying. The staircase to success is often invisible until we look backwards and see how much of it is built on failure. Sure, it's scary to live at the limit of our abilities, pushing until we fail, but so much more rewarding in the long run.

It will be our job as parents, once this is all over and we've bounced back, to keep pointing back to this time with pride: We pushed. We never gave up. And here we are, safely in your future.

—Deb