Mistakes — A Good Thing

‘I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb’.

The famous quote by Thomas Edison puts a positive spin on making mistakes. And it is clear that a 1000 ways of how not to make a light bulb needed to be found in order to find the one that works. Mistakes are necessary byproduct of learning and development. But why is then our entire educational system built on the assumption that making errors is a bad thing?

Every time children make a mistake in school they get punished for it. They either get a bad grade or the teacher simply corrects them in front of all their classmates. They are educated to believe that the worst thing they can do is make a mistake.

Consequently, they start fearing mistakes, which can end up killing creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and talent. The distinctive qualities children naturally possess are being suppressed.

– What do you see?

– I see an egg.

– No it’s incorrect. It’s an ellipse.

Children are initially fearless to think outside the box; they use their imagination to solve problems. But when they get discouraged, they start feeling insecure about their abilities.

Because of their anxiety they start using the term “I can’t do this”, when they are actually perfectly capable of facing the challenge. Next time the teacher poses a question they don’t even start thinking of a solution. They get encouraged to stop using their imagination, and thus they get educated out of creativity. The constant fear of humiliation in front of their peers warns them off of speaking up.

Imagine a situation where the teacher asks a question and you think you know the answer. But then you remember all the times you were wrong and he or she corrected you. You remember that you regretted ever speaking up and this time, to avoid feeling embarrassed, you decide to remain silent. Then you realise that you are better off not saying anything in class, because that way you exclude the possibility of making a mistake. This goes on and on in schools every day. These children then leave school and they look for the next “teacher” who will tell them what to do and what they did wrong. They become silent workers, part of the mass, whose entrepreneurial spirit was killed just when it was supposed to prosper.

Albert Einstein said ‘Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work’. It needs an extreme amount of effort to become very good at what we do. If teachers discourage us in the process of improving our skills, we might lose all interest at something we were initially talented at. For example think of a child who is very talented at mathematics. They have a test in class, and he makes a few mistakes. He is motivated to study harder to correct the mistakes, but the teacher doesn’t give him a chance. He gets “punished” for making those mistakes by getting a low grade. Consequently, he starts believing that after all he is not that good at math, and because of the low grades he starts hating the subject. His motivation to advance was killed; a talent was suppressed and a genius will never be born.

Of course, every system has its flaws. In this case the flaw is significant, but easy to fix. Children need to be encouraged to think independently, take initiative and to be motivated to express their talents. They need to be discouraged of saying “I can’t do this” and taught to say instead “I can, if I really want to”. Instead of punishing them, schools should give them a chance to correct their errors and tell them that the only mistake they could ever make is to not even try to achieve something because of the fear of making a mistake.

Edison was clearly not afraid. And we should all be thankful for that.