The Acrid Smell of Failure

While recently judging an Odyssey of the Mind competition for grades 6 through 8, one teams' self-designed and self-made vehicle stopped dead. It's batteries had burned out and a pungent odor hung in the air. The sixth grader driving the vehicle hung his head and said, "I love the acrid smell of failure in the morning."

That comment kept spinning around in my head and it began to bond with images of more and more students who I come in contact with whose idea of personal responsibility is to point a finger and say, "You do it for me."

Realizing that I have now crossed that line into unavoidable crotchety-old-man-syndrome, I made this video.