Mr. McBride said once (or more) to his History 8 class, "You should be thankful that you can fail." He was contrasting US with the Soviet Union. This at first might seem shocking that the ability to fail is a privilege.
This was what Mr. McBride said while elaborating on his point. Soviet Union was not a free market. Imagine you were a store owner and it is the government who supplies you pens without you ordering. They do not know about the people there, their preference and such. They just give you equal numbers of each type of pen. However, the people only like a certain type of pen, or better still don't really buy pens. The stock just grows and grows. In a free market, you might have to close down your shop and sell other things, or you could have just shipped in pens that you know the people like. But in the Soviet Union's marketing system, you still have to sell the pens, and are not able to shut it down, considering it a failure. That was why he said you should be thankful you can fail.
Failing, and admitting you fail, recognizing your mistake, helps you learn from your mistakes, improving the next attempt. It tells you what you went wrong and helps you to improve yourself, to make you more proficient.
I think failing goes hand in hand with pioneering. Take for example the famous inventor Thomas Edison who only succeeded in his electric light bulb after many tries. Or what about the man who made Indian rubber that was just the right texture for all weathers. He too had to go through many hardships and failures before he made his discovery. There was another inventor of an explosive, who in his trying to make it work, his brother was killed in an experimental explosion. The inventors that had to go through failures are numerous. Their character is admired even today.
Another example, about failing from Dae Jang-geum. I'm sure the viewers very aware of the stark difference between Gun-Ying and Jang-geum, especially in the way they grew up. Jang-geum had an unquenchable curiosity that made her test new things even at the risk of failing (it not working out) or getting scolded. One incident while they were not yet full-fledged palace girls, Jang-guem tried cooking with all the different kinds of charcoal to see the different effects. In the end, the place was full of smoke and Cui Sang-gong was upset with her. Cui gave her beating on her hand. Gun-ying later wanted to try out new stuff, wanting to make new combinations of food (this was in following Jang-geum's training of drawing out the taste); but Cui Sang-gong wouldn't let her even try, all too proud in their "Family's recipe." If Gun-ying was allowed to fail in her cooking, she would have been able to advance further. She could have been able to develop her family's cooking recipes even more, resulting in a better Cui line, rather than a stagnant line just using the same old recipes. (By the way, this goes to prove that not all old stuff is the best stuff.) It was because of Jang-geum's ability to fail, that let her discover many things and recipes, making her a great cook.
For a teacher, failing is very important. If you as the teacher never failed, how would you understand the struggles of a failing student, how could you help them impove?
The ability to fail is very important to advance and I would really appreciate it. Everyone needs to be able to make mistakes.
