Marks Matter
So, apparently ‘everyone knows’ Einstein flunked Maths in high school. Thus, every time we fail, Einstein becomes the saviour! But, here is a thing; Einstein never flunked Maths. In his own words, he had mastered differential and integral calculus before he was 15. He only failed once and that was an entrance examination that was given in French and at 11 he did not know much of the language. Now, this is not about Einstein, you can always Google him as I did for all this information,this is about failures. There is no shame in failing but there is plenty of it if one gets cosy with the idea and stops trying. Thus whenever you place Einstein on pedestal and present him as an exemplary failure to the young, do not forget to tell them that the key feature of Einstein’s personality is not that he failed but the plausible truth, that he never stopped. Researchers of leading universities believe that Einstein showed signs of Asperger’s as a child but, if true, even that did not stop him f...