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| Georgiana Sook ('19) |
Two days after returning from China, I started working at a summer program for high school students with entrepreneurial aspirations. Since working here I’ve been thinking a lot about how Chinese and American cultures teach kids to think about identity, success, and failure.
The Chinese culture surrounding youth promotes being the same as everyone else in all but one regard: one must strive be the best, no matter the cost. One is not encouraged to stand out unless you’re standing out by doing the same things as everyone else, only better. This cultural influence has created students who are far more hard-working than any I’ve met in the US. Our student guides explained to us that in high school, most kids study from around six in the morning until eleven or twelve at night. When asked what they do for fun, one student semi-jokingly responded, “more work.” Because of the one-child policy, which was in effect until 2016, many of the people we met who were our age did not have siblings. I imagine that paired with the desire to bring honor to one’s parents (another cultural value), being an only-child contributes to the pressure students feel to perform well academically.
American parents, while they can be competitive, tend to care more about their kids being happy and confident than first in their class. On the whole, I believe that this is a healthy, positive thing. When being first in the class is everyone’s measure of success, all but one in the class inevitably fail. When individual strengths are celebrated, however, everyone can succeed.
This isn’t to say that I think everyone should get a participation trophy. On the contrary, I think American kids are often protected from failure in a way that rewards laziness and supports delusions about oneself. The Chinese people I met seemed not only more hard working, but also more humble. When you grow up being told how special and unique you are, you are at a great risk of becoming entitled and ego-centric. And that we are. Chinese culture puts a larger emphasis on the larger community and one’s role within it, whereas American culture champions the individual over the community.
I would argue both cultures, though in very different ways, have a bad relationship with failure. American parents tend to protect their kids from failing, either through avoiding failure or denying it. Avoiding failure looks like a parent discouraging a kid to try something for fear they may embarrass themselves. Often times this comes from the parent’s own insecurities. Denying failure can look like a participation trophy or shifting blame for a failure away from a child and onto a teacher, judge, coach, etc.
Instead of cushioning our kids from the pains of losing, we should let them lose. The confidence that comes from never failing is a very shallow confidence that won’t build character or hold up in the real world. Fearing failure keeps us from trying anything that might be difficult. If we want to experience any kind of growth, we must embrace the possibility and inevitable reality that we will fail. Losing and failing are only bad things when you stake your identity on success. This is where I think Chinese culture fails its children. While they learn to work far harder than American kids, kids in China never get to feel like they’ve done enough until they are number one, and once they are at the top, they must fight everyday to remain there. It’s a zero sum game.
The biggest thing I learned when attending Governor’s School for Entrepreneurs in high school was that failing is the only way to succeed. As an alum of the program, I’ve returned to spend three weeks teaching high school kids that failure is way cooler than never trying. We even have an ice cream party for the first team whose idea fails. We congratulate them on finding out early that their solution doesn’t work because all that means is that they’re one step closer to figuring out what will. The entrepreneurial mindset is one that must embrace failure without being discouraged.
Georgiana Sook, of Owensboro, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2019. She studies English and philosophy at the University of Louisville.