Allowing oneself to be vulnerable to honesty is extremely difficult. Disliking honest critiques can be gut wrenching, but I truly believe this allows for personal growth. Denial will only leave you wanting. It is like Anne Lamott says in, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life,”:
Criticism is very hard to take. But then whichever friend is savaging my work will suggest that we go through it together page by page, line by line, and in clipped, high-pitched voice I’ll often suggest that this won’t be necessary, that everything’s just fine. But these friends will talk me into going through the manuscript…. By the end, I am breathing a great sigh of relief and gratitude (11).
People should be encouraged to embark upon difficult endeavors. I don’t think this is fostered here in the United States in our education system. Telling students it is okay to take risks and fail is important to learning. I tell my students everyday it should be hard and challenging, otherwise what is the point? Making mistakes is the learning process. It is how we start out when we are babies, struggling to stand and then proceeding to walking, so why should it not be part of higher levels of learning? Many of my students rather flat out fail than fail trying; or believe that if they fail once, the whole universe is going to come crashing down; it is all or nothing. I started reading a book awhile back called The Smartest Kids in the World and how they got that way by Amanda Ripley. She talks about the education system in Finland, and how American students are not demanded to put forth enough effort. She goes further into describing the Finish education system and explains a math class where students are presented with extremely hard math problems, and the vast majority fail. No one complains or gets upset, they just try it again. It is curious how the future would unfold if we could foster classrooms based on effort rather than grade (or is this the point of Montessori schools?)