The Brilliant Young Learner
While helping us clean our house, my grandmother discovered one of my old notebooks dating back to my pre-middle school years. I had long forgotten about it, so I was curious about its contents. The little notebook contained a short story that I wrote when I was ten or eleven years old.
As I read the first few pages, I literally cringed. It was bad. Not just the writing. Everything about it. Bad syntax. Bad handwriting. Bad punctuation. Bad spelling. Just, bad.
I stopped.
I was shocked by my harsh reaction. I actually felt sorry for my younger self. If anyone would have spoken that scathing critique to me at that age, I would have stopped writing.
I opened the notebook again and read the rest of my story. By the time I finished, I was smiling. It was a little comical to read through my stumbling prose. There are also a lot of fuzzy feelings that come up with long lost gems like old journals. But, I think the majority of my amusement came from the irony of it all, because that short story was about a kid who discovers a love for reading and writing.
It’s a pretty good story, if I may say so myself.
I love writing. I did then, and I do now. But, a lot of things have changed since I was that young. I’ve studied composition, analyzed written works of all types and—fortunately for everyone—learned to edit. My writing style and voice have matured over the years. I even spend more time writing now than I did when I was younger.
But, I’ve also lost a lot freedom. At the age of writing that story, I wrote because I thought it was really fun. I was happy by actual act of writing. I wrote all sorts of things all the time. “Composition,” “analysis” and “style” weren’t priorities; writing was.
Now, writing has become personal to a detrimental level. I fear (yes, fear) that someone else will come across what I’ve written before it’s “perfect” because it might reflect poorly on me. I edit my writing like a fiend. If I’m not careful, I’ll spend a two- to three-hour session writing one paragraph before I “edit” it all away in less than ten minutes, ending right back where I began. Finding a grammatical error in a draft can stop me in my tracks, and I may not touch that draft for two days because I feel the whole thing is rubbish. Criticism, however constructive, feels like being stabbed by a rusty knife. It can be a real killjoy.
Many of you are probably recognize these sentiments, and not just about writing. The more pieces I read like this, the more I’m realizing that this is not just my problem. This is a growing up problem.
It’s a strange conclusion to reach because we’ve gained so much by getting older. We’re more knowledgeable, more skilled and more efficient. But somewhere along the line, we’ve become uncomfortable with making mistakes. We’re especially uncomfortable with making mistakes in public. So, we avoid messing up as much as possible. Soon, we’re only doing things we’re good at. We avoid new experiences and revel in what’s comfortable. We may sometimes improve, but under the condition that all “kinks” can be worked out privately before publicly displaying any new skills.
Basically, we’re no longer good at being bad at things.
At first glance, this isn’t a disadvantage. After all, we’re getting older which means we’re supposed to be getting better. And, “better” means fewer mistakes, fewer missteps and less failure.
Right?
If you observe the way we now learn, you would think so. Beginning in grade school, our papers are marked, and we’re rewarded for correct answers. We associate wrong answers with embarrassment and sub par performance. Educators drill the correct way of doing things, step-by-step, into our minds. If we fall off track, someone corrects us as early as possible in order to prevent “bad habits.” We’re taught all relevant information prior to being tested. We’re instructed on all necessary techniques prior to solving a problem. The goal is to avoid mistakes.
What’s wrong with this?
Avoiding mistakes is not necessarily conducive to learning.
We’re often amazed at how quickly small children learn, but we shouldn’t be. Children are doers by nature. When a child first learns to walk, he spends much more time trying to walk than he does actually walking. He shakily stands. He wobbles. He trips. He shuffles. He falls down face first. He’s really bad at actually moving forward. But, once a child grasps the concept of a valuable skill, he begins using it immediately, even if he hasn’t mastered it yet.
Think about how a child learns to talk. Before she even learns her first words, any semblance of language is fair game. She doesn’t wait until she’s learned subject-verb-object structure, verb conjugation and the one thousand most commonly used words before she begins speaking. She starts by repeating the same three words as often as possible. She moves on to basic sentence structure, incorrect grammar and made up words. She’s really bad at speaking intelligibly. But, she improves, all the while using skills she has yet to fully grasp.
Try to find a kid who won’t play catch with you. Generally speaking, most small children can’t catch worth a can of beans. But, that doesn’t stop them from trying, and it certainly doesn’t stop them from enjoying a one-sided game of catch.
Little ones aren’t bothered by being bad at things. Come to think of it, we’re not bothered by their mess ups either. On the contrary, we’re glad they’re trying.
Children are literally practicing non-stop. They spend quite some time being bad at things, but their continual practice and determination allows them to pick up on skills very quickly. What’s more, kids don’t even realize they’re practicing. They’re simply using skills they deem valuable even if they don’t quite have the hang of it.
It seems as if kids bumbling about in life actually helps them learn and improve. It follows, then, that continuing the habit of early and frequent practice—including the many, many associated mistakes—could be helpful as adults.
As people who are older and supposedly wiser, we understand and have observed that practice certainly makes better. We know that learning new skills is valuable in many different ways. We also know that no one is an immediate expert and that mistakes are inevitable. But, we still hesitate to do things we’re not sure we’d be good at immediately. If there’s a chance that we’ll make a lot of mistakes in the beginning, we generally don’t even try. We’re sabotaging ourselves because we’re more concerned about making mistakes than the opportunity to learn from them. So, if being bad at things used to not bother us before, why does it bother us now?
At some point, we determined that failure is unacceptable.
When we make a mistake, we’re embarrassed, often to the point of never trying again, at least not wholeheartedly. Unlike children who simply do, we analyze exhaustively to the point of inaction.
Apparently, the only thing we have managed to retain from childhood is the ability to fear things that aren’t threats. Our egos are overprotective, and we worry about things that don’t deserve our energy. We’re worried about what will happen if someones sees us mess up. We’re nervous about getting things wrong. We’re afraid of exposing our shortcomings.
It’s the boogeyman all over again.
The beautiful thing about little children is that they live several years of their life untainted by the notion of perfection. They try new things eagerly, mess up boldly and correct themselves immediately. They’re excited by novelty, not scared of it.
As adults, we need to reclaim all of that. Be terrible more often. It’s amazing how easy it is to improve when your problems are glaringly obvious. Change your attitude toward mistakes. Use them as one of the greatest performance reviews you could ever ask for. If it didn’t work on the first try, tweak your approach. It’s still not working? Tweak it again. You should be adjusting, you should be seeking advice, and you should always be getting better.
In fact, if you’re doing something perfectly, you should reevaluate. You’re probably missing an opportunity to improve.
When the boogeyman of missed perfection raises his ugly head again, face him directly and leverage the actual result. If you make a blunder, identify it, and fix it. If perform poorly, probe further to identify weak areas, and do what you can to make it better for next time. If you really let someone down, apologize genuinely, and try to implement some safeties to prevent it from happening again. It’s tough to face your failures, but it’s worth it to improve. Feeling sorry for yourself, however, gets nothing done.
Be daring. Try new things, and get excited about it. Use your newly acquired knowledge as soon as you can. Expect mistakes. Mess up royally. Adjust as needed.
Just like when you were a kid.
