Mistakes Help Us Grow

Blog post by Colleen Reiner, PTAC Member

I loved art class in high school.  It was quiet and I could work on my project at my own pace.  

One day, I decided to surprise my family by doing a pen and ink drawing of our 100-year-old Victorian house.  This project requires you to dip a pen into an ink well and carefully draw all the lines, curves, and details.  I was almost finished when a devastating thing happened.

I accidently got too much ink on my pen and ended up with a big blob of ink where my bushes should be.  Immediately, I started crying thinking that my picture was ruined. Mrs. Strafford, my art teacher, came over to find out what was wrong.  She calmly told me that mistakes were an opportunity to go in a new direction. We talked about how we could turn the blob into berries on my bushes and I envisioned a new picture!  

So often, we all think that we need to be perfect and we are ruined if we make a mistake.  
A few years later I was student teaching during my senior year of college. I made a mistake and had to go to the director of the childcare center.  I took responsibility for my choice and talked about how I would rectify the situation. This woman was so kind. She listened, understood, and forgave me immediately.  There was no hesitation in her decision.

Her take on mistakes was that we all make them.  The important thing is to admit it, take responsibility for it, create a solution, and try not to make that same mistake again. That day,  I learned how important it is to forgive others when they make mistakes. This helps them to move forward and make new choices.

In these cases, I had great teachers who helped me to grow in a positive way.  They showed me that I didn’t have to be perfect and making mistakes was just part of growing and learning.  

This summer I found just the right video to show my students about mistakes.  Dr. Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, tells of the importance of making mistakes in her video, “Mistakes.” She states that there is evidence of the importance of mistakes in life.  If you compare successful with unsuccessful people in life, the successful people have made more mistakes. I recommend that you check it out.

In my classroom mistakes are expected and celebrated.  At first, students are afraid to make mistakes, let alone admit that they made them.  We start by watching Dr. Boaler’s video. We talk about how our brain grows every time we make a mistake.  I work hard all year looking for just the right mistakes to highlight. Students are so surprised when I ask to share their mistake with the rest of the class, and I’m excited about it!  Eventually, they are pointing their mistakes out to me AND they are sharing how they solved their problem.
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The mission of my school district is to make students lifelong learners.  The best way I can do this is to teach students to step up to the challenge, be inquisitive, and persevere through mistakes.  If we start early, and cultivate these characteristics in our students, we can all achieve this goal.

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