The Importance of Making Mistakes

Working as a tutor one of the big barriers that I see many students face is the fear of making mistakes. Many students that I work with feel like they have completely failed and need to just give up when they make a mistake, meaning to them, get a wrong answer in the learning process as I work with them. The conventional wisdom is that you learn things correctly and repeat them correctly so that they become drilled into the brain. Some research indicates that this may be inefficient and isn’t really in line with the way our brain is designed. 

I talked with a friend and colleague of mine the other day about where I was going with my writing. The direction I wanted to go in my writing and a couple stories that I really want to write were discussed. I told him that I felt like I needed to write about some others things to get practice before I wrote on those issues that I really cared about. He mentioned something to me, that perhaps I should go ahead and write them now, and improve them as I went along. He told me that I should write about them while I found them interesting. I went home and got to thinking about this. I realized when it push came to shove, I was afraid of making mistake with what I felt strongly about expressing.

 I can see, there are some flaws in this thinking:

1.  I really need to write most about the things that are important to me, because I will “put my all” into them.
2. I will learn more along the way, and may pick the pieces back up later and improve them.
3. Perfect is an ugly monster that I have a love/hate relationship with and I just need to get over it.
4. If I write them “wrong” I will learn from the experience than if I get it right.

So, I am making it a goal this week to work on the handful of stories I really want to write, even if I do write them wrong this go around. The mathematician in me does want things precise in the end, but I can make some mistakes, take a few dead-end trails, backtrack, experiment, and more importantly: have fun in the process. So, what are you going to try even if you think you are going to do it wrong?