Learn More: Make Mistakes!

By Ilka Oster

I am re- reading Robert Kiosaki's book called If you want to be rich and happy don't go to school . He makes mention of the worst thing about school being the fact that the only thing that matters is being right. Kids and teachers become fixated on getting the answers RIGHT. This causes heaps of stress because true learning happens when we do stuff, and when we do enough stuff we make mistakes and then we learn from these mistakes. The example of a child learning to walk is a good one. How many times do they fall over and cry and get frustrated before they perfect the art of walking. In school this is not permitted, you must get the answer right. There is no mention of the lessons that are learnt from making mistakes.

"Getting it wrong" as you say is a deadly sin. Yet in life I have found making mistakes advantageous to learning. I need to try stuff by myself, explore stuff by myself, ponder it, do it. I need to make mistakes and learn from them to really learn. As my children have all been unschooled their entire lives they have a very strong sense of autonomy and learning to do things themselves. They don't want me to help them, they want to make the mistakes and learn from them. My father, a business man always told me you could learn a lot from failure. I have always talked about this with my children as well. My son who is obsessed with Tennis is learning this lesson well as he relentlessly tries to improve his shots and my daughter also as she has worked hard to get through the levels of Ballet exams. It makes me realise why we love to watch elite sports people, I think we instinctively know how many mistakes and failures these people have had to overcome to get to the position they are in. We are inspired by their courage.

As Robert Kiosaki writes in his book "Too many people are leading lives of untapped potential and unfulfilled dreams because ultimately "don't make mistakes" is all they learned from school." Ask yourself this: "What dreams am I not living because I am afraid of failing?" A life without dreams fulfilled is a life not worth living."

Articles on this topic by Beverley Paine and friends:

• How doing my best and working for better grades damaged me
• Testing... The Natural Learning Way
• Comparison, competition, socialisation, natural learning and parenting
• How We Learn ~ the Process of Learning Naturally
• Surrendering and Learning to Trust our Children's Learning Journeys
• Dealing with Mistakes in Maths and Other Subjects
• The Role of Grades, Levels, and Tests in the Homeschool
• What To Do When Children Make 'Mistakes'
• The Pros and Cons of Testing