subject: What's wrong with my education? [print this page] When I was in elementary grade 2, my teacher had a different way to discipline us. She frequently gave us exams and base on the results, she punished us for the mistakes and errors that we got. And the punishment, we lie down on our desk while she hit us on our butt with her stick. The number of hit corresponds to the number of errors we committed on the exam. The pain that we had on our punishment motivates us not to commit mistakes on the next exam. And the lesson that we got, don't make any mistakes.
For few years, I thought this event or anything similar to it is beneficial to me or to those involved. Our mind was still young and we're on the stage of developing our thoughts and habits back then. We were trained never to commit error or mistakes, which most of us became the basis of everyday living. This is how we are trained in school. And this is how we grew up, never commit mistake and be on safe side always. Then comes the famous line, study hard, get good grades and get a good job with good benefits. The cycle goes on and on, never realizing that we became slave to our jobs.
In reality, there is a bad side of this kind of training. In order to be successful in life, we must do extra effort. That means leaving our comfort zone, bear the hardship and commit mistakes. Failure is a great teacher as what they say. And success is a product of so many failures. Success is not a good teacher, failure is. We tend to be contented on being safe, sitting in our comfort and never venture risk. Risk equals to extra effort and tendency to commit mistake. That is why most of us never take it. No wonder only few people are successful, only few people take risks.
Let's start by changing our mindset that committing mistakes is not good. We all do commit mistakes. What's most important is, learn the lesson and move on. Dwelling much about it makes it worst and eventually hampers our personal growth.
Instead of only punishing someone who committed mistakes, try also to discuss the very important lesson that they can learn from it. Try to explain mistakes with a positive point of view, not only the negatives of it. This is the best way to empower people around us.
