Kathryn Schulz introduces the concept that being wrong is a good thing.
This is not to say I did everything right in my life, and I was some sort of crazy person who never did anything wrong. I definitely did not do everything right, but as for my high school experience, it was rather comfortable. I was definitely challenged academically, but before moving away from home, I was never challenged in so many things as I was in college. In other words, I had never been exposed to so many opportunities to "being wrong." And oh my did I experience my fair share of being wrong after watching that video, as I was forced to survive my first semester at college.
Looking back on my first semester here at college, I cannot even count the amount of times I was wrong. I got lost on the Diag an infinite number of times; I attempted to enter the section of the Law Library restricted to only law students; I addressed a professor incorrectly; I even got hopelessly lost in the Hatcher Graduate Library. I was humiliated in these times, and freaked out to myself about how and why I kept on making mistakes. In other words, I absolutely hated being wrong.
But, as I've learned after a semester of college, it is these things that I did wrong that helped me grow to be the "mature" almost-second-semester-Freshman I am today. Without failing in so many things, I would not have been able to now succeed. I now know the Diag like the back of my hand, for example, thanks to the countless times I wandered around aimlessly on it.
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| Yes! It's good to get problems wrong -- You learn from them. Found here. |
Thanks to my college experience so far, I have learned, as Schulz reaffirms the importance of in her TedTalk, that it is okay to be wrong; in fact, it is encouraged. I have now learned to appreciate the times I have been wrong, because I know that because of my mistakes, I will learn from them and therefore grow as a result. So, here's to being wrong!
That TED Talk was wonderful. So enlightening and reinforcing!
ReplyDeleteI like what you're saying here. I definitely agree--I'm so self-conscious about being wrong that most of the time I just don't offer to answer questions anymore. The other day, I said that in 1964 the Voting Rights Act took effect. Well, I was wrong, and I felt really bad about it. It's certainly not the way to think, though, you're right.
Many people have told me to get used to getting Bs. I feel like it's awful to get a B, but I'm starting to understand that it's pretty good at U of M. Not the best, but it doesn't mean I'm not doing well enough. It's all a process, and I think that it's not until later ages that you begin being comfortable with being wrong. It's an interesting process.
I think being wrong helps up grow. Not just in the fact of the wrongness and the embarrassment of it, but in our ability to recognize it and move on. I had a discussion with friends the other day about how college is sort of a dream state between living under the sanctity of our parents and facing the world on our own. But before we move on by ourselves we need to learn things we may not have learned under the cushion of our parents and our hometown. We are more vulnerable here and mistakes impact us more. But being willing to make mistakes, to take on subjects that aren't our strongest, or taking risks socially all shape who we become. I also think Menand would agree that being wrong is kind of like theory two in his theories of higher education. We go to college not just to learn a trade, but to learn just how much we don't know. Hopefully by learning here and making a lot of mistakes, we will become better individuals.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post. As we come to the end of our first semester here at college (where did the time go?) I have been having several similar reflections as well. Overall, it was definitely a learning process, but as you have said, it was the mistakes made that helped shape and mold us into what we are now. Nobody expected us to come in and know everything immediately, and as a result of being confused and bewildered, we have become better people now. Change is always welcome, and despite appearing frightening at first, change almost always results in positive effects as we learn to cope with such changes in our lives.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great post, Rosemarie. As I look back on my first semester at college, I realize that I am in the same boat as you. I had mishaps with professors, and countless "where am I?" moments. Although, it is sad that I got lost so many times because I have lived around Ann Arbor for my entire life. When those moments occurred, I absolutely dreaded my entire existence. In the moment, being wrong is the worst feeling in the world; you would pay anything to go back and change your behavior so nothing embarrassing ever happened. However, sometime after the unfortunate event, you realize that it made you a better person. Would I know my way around Ann Arbor's backstreets if I never got lost and followed the same route to classes every day? No. It is important to look at our mistakes and learn from them; this is the only way we can really mature and grow as human beings. We must look at the dark spots of our lives in order to learn how to avoid making the same mishaps in the future.
ReplyDeleteI can see the same progress in myself as I have progressed throughout this semester! Coming to school, I couldn't even navigate around my dorm nevertheless the entire campus. In the earlier parts of the semester, I used to have to carry around a campus map around to figure out how to get to certain buildings. However, through countless encounters and mistakes almost everyday, I have learned how to navigate around the campus and find the shortest routes to all of my classes. I think that the progress I have made is substantial from learning from mistakes. I wish that it would apply to the academic setting as well. Unfortunately, while you can learn from mistakes, it is not always easy to come back from them. For example, in many circumstances students, such as myself, have difficulty with classes in the beginning and learn how to preform better as they adapt to a newer class structure. Unfortunately, by the time that I actually learn from my mistake, I found that I was in too deep of a whole to come back from. While I agree learning from mistakes is very helpful, academically, it's hard to afford for mistakes.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, I have to say that I think this post is cute. From personal experiences and from those of close friends, it seems as though we all have had at least one embarrassing moment on campus, most of which were made in our first terms here. However, at the end of your psot when you mentioned that Schulz says that it's encouraged to be wrong, I couldn't help but get very analytical about it. Even though it is the case that we learn from our mistakes, I don't necessarily think that we should encourage mistake-making. I mean, for small things like trying to find your way around campus it's fine to walk into a wrong classroom once or twice. But when it comes to more serious matters such as moral dilemmas, I don't think it's prudent to apply a guess-and-check kind of logic. Mind you, this isn't to say that mistake-making should be the rule of thumb of society or that in the presence of it, it should exclude empirical societal facts. I just think we should be weary about why mistakes are viewed as harshly as they have been.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. I didn't fully understand what Schulz was saying until I had actually made those "bigger" mistakes. I remember the feeling of realization that a sub-par grade wasn't a bad thing...arguably, I've learned much more this semester from those grades that frustrated me most. Because they push me to just become that much better of a student, while also accepting that we're not supposed to be great at everything. Otherwise, how would we ever decide what to study here? I'm slowly accepting that allowing myself to make mistakes is more productive than expecting perfection.
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