You’re wrong. You make mistakes. I’m wrong. I make mistakes. We’re wrong. We all make mistakes. If you make mistakes, and I make mistakes, and we all make mistakes, then why is it so hard for people to embrace them? In a TED talk March of 2011, Kathryn Schulz gave a speech about being wrong. She makes the point that everyone in the whole world messes up daily and in reality there is nothing wrong with being wrong! People learn and problem solve from experiencing their own mistakes. Schulz argues that if society did not cast a negative light on messing up, then there would be much more success in the world. Progress in this world is a direct result of failure. So now ask yourself this question, what happens when you learn you have done something incorrectly? Your pride goes down, you get discouraged, and you are probably less likely to ever succeed because you might give up. Kathryn Schulz’s main point is that there is absolutely nothing bad about screwing up every now and then. Without failure, we would never know if we were succeeding at all. After all, Thomas Edison messed up hundreds of times before he figured out how to make the light bulb and no one calls him a screw up.
Kathryn Schulz is a unique woman. While most people spend their entire lives focusing on the good, Schulz focuses on the bad. Through this she has learned many interesting concepts. Her techniques for explaining these concepts are fascinating. She shares with her audience personal stories of failure as well as accounts of others failures to prove her points. By being open with her listeners, they accept her points and see her point of view more clearly. One of her stronger techniques is her ability to make her audience laugh. Through comedy she proves her important points and leaves a lasting impression. Connecting with her listeners is a key technique especially in her presentation. Schulz topic of failure is difficult for people to accept because no one likes the feeling of defeat. However because of her ability to connect with her audience, she is able to influence their opinions on messing up.
Schulz presentation style is basic but she is able to make it exciting in her own way. During her almost 18 minute speech, she often refers back to her powerpoint to solidify her key points and to help explain what she means. Her slides consist of a variety of pictures, bulleted facts, and quotes. Schulz also is the first presenter I have seen that uses audience participation. She asks the listeners questions and then uses their answers to help prove her ideas. This is most effective because it helps her audience apply her ideas to their own lives and therefore she successfully gets them to understand what she means.
There are a hundreds important ideas from Kathryn’s speech that matter to everyone everywhere. However I think that there are a few key concepts that are especially important to the world, to education, and to me. The first idea being that it is ok to be wrong. Now I know that everyone has been told this at one time or another in their lifetime but I think that Schulz proves this instead of just preaching it. She believes that failure is the key to success for everyone. In the world, people make mistakes every day. Leaders of countries make mistakes all the time and because of this, their achievements in office are over looked because of their mistakes. This is not right. People should be given as many times as they need to get something right, as long as they get it right in the end and own up to their mistakes. This brings us to education; students should not be given a final grade the first time on all their work if they do not feel they did their best. After all isn’t the main goal for students to learn the material? Why does it matter if they learn it by a certain time set by the teacher? If students were allowed to make mistakes and not worry about the grades they received, then the education system would immediately see the benefits. If I personally was able to accept failure in my own life easier, I think that I would find solutions much more quickly. When I mess up, I dwell on my mistakes instead of immediately thinking of ways to improve upon what I did wrong. In my opinion, Kathryn Schulz’s lesson is the most important lesson anyone could ever learn.
No comments:
Post a Comment