Education for successful life

What do you think of this article? I'd be really curious to know your thoughts :)

What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

My capstone topic is regarding empathy.
I got interested in this topic because I learned in Social Psych class that "children who are taught to put themselves in others' shoes often have higher self-esteem, are more generous, and are less aggressive than children who lack skills of empathy." Also, these children who have learned to empathize also tend to have higher academic achievement. So I think learning to be empathetic is really advantageous to children.
I talked to Esther, who is my mentor, about my topic and she sent me this link saying I might be interested. It is about two schools which are initiating (initiated?) programs to develop "good character" because research showed that people with "good character" tended to graduate college, get a good job, and lead a good life. My understanding is, that these two schools realized that cultivating "good character" is as important as academics, and that schools need to do something to develop such characteristics. First of all, they defined what "good characteristics" would mean (i.e. zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity) and the two schools each created a program to develop the good traits which makes a good character.

As part of the program, one school decided to hand out "character report card" which is an evaluation of a child's characteristics. I feel this is not right. Children are going to be conscious of the report card and how they will be evaluated. For a second, I thought this might help students to learn to be a better student, a better daughter/son, and a better person, but I feel like the school is forcing children to be someone who are not themselves. What do you think?

At the end of the article, the school principal of one school stated that "the idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure." Parents and teachers need to challenge the children in order for them to grow in academics and to develop "good characteristics." I think at one point in class, someone mentioned that students learn to fear failure. I think this program is encourage such fear and therefore is unsuccessful.