Fall 1
Robert Fall
Instructor: Eve Elden
ENG 111
February 11, 2014
Review of In Praise of the “F” Word
In her Newsweek article from 1991 entitled In Praise of the “F” Word, Mary Sherry
speaks from her experience and frustration of teaching young adults things they should have
learned long before meeting her. At the time of writing this article, Mary taught basic grammar
and writing through an adult literacy program. She begins the article downplaying a diploma by
saying “[t]ens of thousands of 18-year-olds will graduate this year and be handed meaningless
diplomas” (Sherry). Mary is making the point that the diploma is nothing more than something
everyone else has. It does not in and of itself put you ahead of anyone else looking for a job. You
need to have one, but just having one is nothing special. Though not having one… well that is a
different article. Interestingly enough I think diplomas of 20 years ago are college degrees of
today. So what everyone has one, right? What are you learning?
Mary brings to light that employers are not stupid and quickly pick up on semiliterate
people. Whose fault is it? Drawing from her practical experience of how she asks students to
write about an unpleasant experience they had in school. She insinuates that at least the over
whelming majority of the responses have to do with some kind of regret that is projected on
someone in the student’s life that should have saved them from themselves. “So they just passed
me along…” is the overall theme that Mary takes issue with and is the motivation for this article.
Fall 2
She recounts the story of one of her sons. He was the charming type that did not apply
himself until one teacher called his bluff. Being a good concerned mom, Mary asked why the
teacher wouldn’t just move him to the front of the class. The teacher responded, “I don’t move
seniors, I flunk them” (Sherry). After the shock wore off, Mary jumped behind the teacher and
nonchalantly told her son he was going to fail. This worked; her son received an A in the class. It
also turned her from a do-gooder that blamed society to a truth wielding hammer that now
recognizes the power of the F-word; failure.
Mary does a good job of reminding us that the thought of failure has helped shaped us
into the people we are today. Failing to fail people is actually failing them and us in the long run.
She speaks from firsthand experience; first as a mother, contributing to her sons down fall then
as a teacher left picking up the pieces after the young men and women realize that they were
somehow left behind.
Fall 3
Works Cited
Sherry, Mary In Praise of the “F” Word, Newsweek, May 6, 1991 Reprinted in Exploring
Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century, Pearson Learning
Solutions, Boston, MA, 2013