Mistakes

Mistakes remind us how we have grown.
I used to make mistakes when I added up a column of numbers. Now, I can do addition just fine because the calculator does it for me. Now, there’s an accountant who is willing to wrestle with the 1040. The answer we give indicates where we are and how far we have moved past our struggles with 583 + 67 + 320 + 4299.

Mistakes act as literary semaphores.
When the characters in “McIntosh Willie” mistake “Eye, eye” for “Aye, aye” we’re reminded of the boys’ guilt and the bottlecaps that were placed over the corpse of vagrant Willie’s eyes.
Othello is a catalog of hasty and mistaken conclusions engineered by malefic intent, leading to a tragic conclusion.
When the writer incorporates a mistake into the plot or dialog, we need to realize it’s a mistake and ask what that deliberate mistake does for the story. But we can’t recognize a mistake if we haven’t been paying attention to the plotline or our grammar.

Mistakes confuse communication.
"I need to go down this isle." reads the line in the essay.
The one in the Caribbean or the one in the South Pacific? Since the thermometer is hugging zero and there’s snow predicted, let me grab my bathing suit and join you. If English teachers had $5 for every aisle/isle/I’ll mistake, they’d be wintering in the tropics. If they had that $5 for every misuse of their/there/they’re, they would have no need to buy lottery tickets.

I know what you know what I know, what I have concluded.
Do I? Even if we’ve been friends for years, will my life experiences really reveal to me the processes of your mind based on your life experiences?
This detour is more damaging than changing the supermarket for palm fronds. If I know what you are thinking before you have even told me, I may tangle us up in a moral, political, or chemical debate because I know what’s in your mind. Scary.


Mistakes alert us.
It’s too easy to pass judgment on others, but when we see others refusing to learn by their mistakes, we might want to – not judge – but step aside. Consider our own involvement. Be alerted.

Instead of an automatic $5 for the there/their/they’re mistake, I could copyright a stamp clarifying the homophones, market it at conventions, and still have a winter Florida home. From whenever we first made the distinction, our students have had multiple opportunities to learn which “there” fits the situation. If they’re confused, that’s one thing. If they refuse to devote the brainpower to doing so, they’re telling us where their interests and values lie.

“My bad” is a contemporary cliché, a deliberate grammatical mistake, and possibly an indication that someone doesn’t want to take responsibility. Better to laugh it off instead.
Sure, we all hate being called on our gaffes and foibles, but regularly turning the mistake into a joke might be a warning sign: Is this person attempting to build a belief in her own invincibility; use the “poor me” technique; looking for a scapegoat?
What’s wrong with saying, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.” Nobody’s perfect. Maybe we need to worry about the people who can always find someone or something else to blame.


Mistakes are a “slow down” sign.
When the practice exercises and follow-up writings demonstrate that my class still can’t tell time or identify irony, I need to remember that they might not be developmentally ready to learn how to tell time, can’t distinguish gentler irony from the sledge hammer of sarcasm. Maybe I didn’t plan and teach the skill carefully enough. Maybe the students were more interested in the snow falling outside the classroom windows, anticipating recess when they could throw forbidden snowballs. Check feedback. Check Piaget and Gardner and Maslow. Reality check.

Mistakes keep us humble and remind us of our interconnectedness and human condition.
Most of us have winced when we looked in the mirror that hangs in our bathroom or is represented in our best friends’ eyes. We wince at what we’ve done, said, or thought. We messed up. Welcome to being human.
Sometimes we need to wince a few times before we internalize the lesson. But eventually one “next time” we’re tested, we remember what we saw in the mirror. Why? We decide we don’t want to hurt our friend’s feelings or betray our own principles. We change, not for our ego, but for our connectedness.

“We built it,” I say, “but there’s a lot of mistakes.” I’m showing her a project, yet telling my companion that I’m not bragging.
“We believe that there is nothing perfect,” she answers. “If I am beading a design, and it’s done exactly right, I will set one bead just a tiny bit out of where it is supposed to be. Nothing is perfect except the Creator.” I like her answer better than mine. We all need to accept that learning involves mistakes. The skills we have today, have grown from the mistakes and clumsy attempts we made in our learning.

Mistakes belong in our world. It’s what we do with them that tells our students, our friends, and ourselves who we are. If we could do everything perfectly the first time, we wouldn’t call it learning.