Types of Mistakes

by Eduardo Briceño, community.mindsetworks.com

We can deepen our own and our students' understanding of mistakes, which are not all created equal, and are not always desirable. After all, our ability to manage and learn from mistakes is not fixed. We can improve it.

Here are two quotes about mistakes that I like and use, but that can also lead to confusion if we don't further clarify what we mean:

"A life spent making mistakes is not only most honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing"  - George Bernard Shaw

"It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose which it truly has."  - Maria Montessori

These constructive quotes communicate that mistakes are desirable, which is a positive message and part of what we want students to learn. An appreciation of mistakes helps us overcome our fear of making them, enabling us to take risks. But we also want students to understand what kinds of mistakes are most useful and how to most learn from them.

Types of mistakes

The stretch mistakes

Stretch mistakes happen when we're working to expand our current abilities. We're not trying to make these mistakes in that we're not trying to do something incorrectly, but instead, we're trying to do something that is beyond what we already can do without help, so we're bound to make some errors.

Stretch mistakes are positive. If we never made stretch mistakes, it would mean that we never truly challenged ourselves to learn new knowledge or skills.

Sometimes when we're stuck making and repeating the same stretch mistake, the issue may be that we're mindlessly going through the motions, rather than truly focusing on improving our abilities. Other times the root cause may be that our approach to learning is ineffective and we should try a different strategy to learn that new skill. Or it may be that what we're trying is too far beyond what we already know, and we're not yet ready to master that level of challenge. It is not a problem to test our boundaries and rate of growth, exploring how far and quickly we can progress. But if we feel stuck, one thing we can do is adjust the task, decreasing the level of challenge but still keeping it beyond what we already know. Our zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the zone slightly beyond what we already can do without help, which is a fruitful level of challenge for learning.

We want to make stretch mistakes! We want to do so not by trying to do things incorrectly, but by trying to do things that are challenging. When we make stretch mistakes we want to reflect, identify what we can learn, and then adjust our approach to practice, until we master the new level of ability. Then we want to identify a new area of challenge and continue stretching ourselves.

The aha-moment mistakes

Another positive type of mistake, but one that is harder to strive or plan for, is the aha-moment mistake. This happens when we achieve what we intend to do, but then realize that it was a mistake to do so because of some knowledge we lacked which is now becoming apparent. There are lots of examples of this, such as:

● When we lack the content knowledge: e.g. not finding water, we try to extinguish a fire with alcohol, which we didn't realize is flammable.

● When we find there is more nuance than we realized: e.g. in our painting, we color a sun near the horizon as yellow, and later notice that the sun does not always look yellow.

● When we make incorrect assumptions: e.g. we try to help someone else, thinking that help is always welcome, but we find out that the person did not want help at that moment.

● When we make systematic mistakes: e.g. a fellow educator observes us doing a lesson and later points out, with compelling back-up data, that we tend to call on Caucasian girls much more often than we do other students.

● When we misremember: e.g. we call a friend for their birthday on the right date, but the wrong month.

We can gain more aha moments from mistakes by being reflective. We can ask ourselves What was unexpected? Why did that result occur? What went well and what didn't? Is there anything I could try differently next time? We can also ask people around us for information we may not be aware of, or for ideas for improvement.

The sloppy mistakes

Sloppy mistakes happen when we're doing something we already know how to do, but we do it incorrectly because we lose concentration. We all make sloppy mistakes occasionally because we're human. However, when we make too many of these mistakes, especially on a task that we intend to focus on at the time, it signals an opportunity to enhance our focus, processes, environment, or habits.

Sometimes sloppy mistakes can be turned into aha moments. If we make a mistake because we're not focused on the task at hand, or we're too tired, or something distracted us, upon reflection we can gain aha-moments on how to improve, such as realizing we're better at certain tasks after a good night's sleep, or that if we silence our gadgets or close our doors we can focus better.

The high-stakes mistakes

Sometimes we don't want to make a mistake because it would be catastrophic. For example, in potentially dangerous situations we want to be safe. A big mistake from the person in charge of security in a nuclear power plant could lead to a nuclear disaster. We don't want a school bus driver to take a risk going too fast making a turn, or a student in that bus to blindfold the bus driver. In those cases, we want to put processes in place to minimize high-stakes mistakes. We also want to be clear with students about why we don't want the risk-taking behavior and experimentation in these situations, and how they're different from learning-oriented tasks.

Aside from life-threatening situations, we can sometimes consider performance situations to be high-stakes. For example, if going to a prestigious college is important to someone, taking the SAT could be a high-stakes event because the performance in that assessment has important ramifications. Or if a sports team has trained for years, working very hard to maximize growth, a championship final can be considered a high-stakes event. It is okay to see these events as performance events rather than as learning events, and to seek to minimize mistakes and maximize performance in these events. We're putting our best foot forward, trying to perform as best as we can. How we do in these events gives us information about how effective we have become through our hard work and effort. Of course, it is also ok to embed learning activities in high-stakes events that don't involve safety concerns. We can try something that is beyond what we already know and see how it works, as long as we realize that it may impact our performance (positively or negatively). And of course, we can always learn from these performance events by afterwards reflecting and discussing how things went, what we could do differently next time, and how we could adjust our practice.

In a high-stakes event, if we don't achieve our goal of a high test score or winning the championship, let's reflect on the progress we've made through time, on the approaches that have and haven't helped us grow, and on what we can do to grow more effectively. Then let's go back to spending most of our time practicing, challenging ourselves, and seeking stretch mistakes and learning from those mistakes. On the other hand, if we achieve our target score or win a championship, that's great. Let's celebrate the achievement and how much progress we've made. Then let's ask ourselves the same questions. Let's go back to spending most of our time practicing, challenging ourselves, and growing our abilities.

We're all fortunate to be able to enjoy growth and learning throughout life, no matter what our current level of ability is. Nobody can ever take that source of fulfillment away from us.

Let's be clear

Mistakes are not all created equal, and they are not always desirable. In addition, learning from mistakes is not all automatic. In order to learn from them the most we need to reflect on our errors and extract lessons from them.

If we're more precise in our own understanding of mistakes and in our communication with students, it will increase their understanding, buy-in, and efficacy as learners.

En Ehemmiyetli Mesele

 

 

 

Saadet Getiren Üç Şey

 

 

Kendine Bak

 

 

Bugün İslâm dünyası olarak ferdî ve içtimaî konumumuz itibarıyla istediğimiz yerden ve olmamız gereken noktadan uzakta bulunuyorsak, öncelikle bunun sebebini kendimizde aramalıyız ki çözüm adına isabetli adımlar atabilelim. Aksi takdirde geri kalmanın, itibarsızlaşmanın ve üst üste birikmiş problemlerin altında ezilmenin sebeplerini dışarıda aramak ve atf-ı cürümlerde bulunmak çözüm adına herhangi bir fayda sağlamayacaktır. 

China

China will not cede this territory (Xinjiang) and, as in Tibet, the window for independence is closing. Both are buffer zones, one is a major land trade route, and – crucially – both offer markets (albeit with a limited income) for an economy which must keep producing and selling goods if it is to continue to grow and to prevent mass unemployment. Failure to so do would likely lead to widespread civil disorder, threatening the control of the Communist Party and the unity of China.

There are similar reasons for the Party’s resistance to democracy and individual rights. If the population were to be given a free vote, the unity of the Han might begin to crack or, more likely, the countryside and urban areas would come into conflict. That in turn would embolden the people of the buffer zones, further weakening China. It is only a century since the most recent humiliation of the rape of China by foreign powers; for Beijing, unity and economic progress are priorities well ahead of democratic principles.

The Chinese look at society very differently from the West. Western thought is infused with the rights of the individual; Chinese thought prizes the collective above the individual. What the West thinks of as the rights of man, the Chinese leadership thinks of as dangerous theories endangering the majority, and much of the population accepts that, at the least, the extended family comes before the individual.

I once took a Chinese ambassador in London to a high-end French restaurant in the hope they would repeat Prime Minister Zhou Enlai’s much-quoted answer to Richard Nixon’s question ‘What is the impact of the French Revolution?’, to which the prime minister replied ‘It’s too soon to tell.’ Sadly this was not forthcoming, but I was treated to a stern lecture about how the full imposition of ‘what you call human rights’ in China would lead to widespread violence and death and was then asked, ‘Why do you think your values would work in a culture you don’t understand?’

The deal between the Party leaders and the people has been, for a generation now, ‘We’ll make you better off – you will follow our orders.’ So long as the economy keeps growing, that grand bargain may last. If it stops, or goes into reverse, the deal is off. The current level of demonstrations and anger against corruption and inefficiency are testament to what would happen if the deal breaks.

Another growing problem for the Party is its ability to feed the population. More than 40 per cent of arable land is now either polluted or has thinning topsoil, according to their Ministry of Agriculture.

China is caught in a catch-22. It needs to keep industrialising as it modernises and raises standards of living, but that very process threatens food production. If it cannot solve this problem there will be unrest.

There are now around 500 mostly peaceful protests a day across China over a variety of issues. If you introduce mass unemployment, or mass hunger, that tally will explode in both number and the degree of force used by both sides.

So, on the economic side China now also has a grand bargain with the world – ‘We’ll make the stuff for cheap – you buy it for cheap.’

Travels of the Prophet 2

 

"Have you seen the fire that you made?"

 

Muhammad and his band would have descended the escarpment, entering a field of dunes, the shadows in their slack like hyena stripes. When Muhammad and his band made camp long after midnight, they would have squatted around a campfire, its amber flames crackling in the stillness, cooking some supper. The Qur’an (The Event 56:71–73) later reminded its hearers among the Meccan caravanners, “Have you seen the fire that you made? Did you create the firewood or did we? We rendered it a reminder and a means of provisioning those strong enough to traverse the desert.” They would have unpacked their beasts of burden and piled up their goods in a circle as protection from a raid and then slept with their swords close at hand. The snarling of jackals and wild saluki hounds around the camp might have startled Muhammad awake occasionally.

We all come from somewhere

 

Commander Saru by Doug Jones

"We all come from somewhere. We carry that place with us where ever we go. That never leaves our hearts. Not entirely. But none of us can predict where our voyage will lead. We may suffer losses along the way. But we can hope to learn and grow from those experiences and from those who accompany us through our journey."

Saru, Star Trek Discovery 

Quraysh and Romans

 

Muhammad’s forebears had negotiated a set of alliances and informal treaties with most tribes of the Hejaz and Transjordan, which allowed a modest cavalcade to wend its way through their territory and involved payoffs, sharing of trading profits, marriage alliances, and respect for the Kaaba sanctuary of God and for the Quraysh as its guardians. The Qur’an (106:1–4) later referred to this network of treaty obligations, seeing it as a divine bestowal: “Because of his benevolence toward the Quraysh they were enabled to undertake the winter and summer caravans. So let them worship the lord of this shrine, who provided them with food to stop their hunger and gave them security against fear.”

Muhammad’s great-grandfather Hashim ibn `Abd Manaf was said to have personally visited Roman authorities in Syria, likely in the early 490s, and negotiated tariff abatements and safe passage for the Meccan merchants who journeyed through the empire. He initiated the practice of bringing “bags of wheat” from Damascus. Meccans timed these annual treks north just after the summer grain harvest since they, wedged among obsidian lava beds and misshapen spatter cones, lacked that key dietary nutrient. Hejazis like Muhammad, who could not stand the cold of the Levant in December, instead went south to Yemen for winter wheat. Mecca, as a neutral

city-state, could bring Indian Ocean goods up from the port of Aden and then take them to the Roman Near East. Because by treaty Iran limited the cities that could trade with Rome and charged its enemies in Constantinople a 25 percent tariff on desirable Asian luxury goods, Hejazis could offer these commodities at a discount by acting as a third party.

The Quraysh brought back staples like grain as well as raisins, wine, and Damascene swords. The substantial expenses of overland caravan trade required carrying lightweight luxury items to make the voyage worthwhile. The Hejazis were known for their precious metals and called the mines near Medina the “Cradle of Gold.” The Roman Empire had to pay large sums of gold annually to Iran to keep the peace after losing several key campaigns, an obligation that may have increased the profitability of the nuggets provided by the caravan trade. They probably also traded in leather, high-quality dates, ivory from Ethiopia, and Asian goods such as silk via Yemen. Occasionally, they may have brought wealthy Jews from Yemen up to Palestine, transporting their deceased loved ones in an ossuary for burial in the Holy Land.

Travels of the Prophet

 

Now, at age twenty-five, Muhammad had an opportunity to escape his relative poverty. When the modest camel trains assembled outside Mecca to go to Syria, Khadija’s rivaled all the others combined—that is, she may have possessed half of the town’s long-distance merchant capital. Muhammad’s uncle Abu Talib had recommended him when she asked for someone honest and reliable. Khadija, somewhat Muhammad’s elder, would have met him in her receiving room with her circle of advisers. Making her decision, she underlined the responsibility she was vouchsafing to him: “I’ve entrusted you with twice as many goods as any of your predecessors among your people.”

She sent along her manservant Maysara, likely as much to keep an eye on her capital as to serve Muhammad. The young man had just gained a magnificent opportunity, but he had incurred daunting risks as well. Let us try to imagine what his hazardous journey through the world of the late sixth century was like.

The caravan may have set out from the small Arabian holy city in August 592. Citizens gathered beneath the lambent late-afternoon sun to see the traders off, having invested in the mission, ringing bells and beating tambourines. Muhammad and the other traders wore the white robes of merchant-priests of peace. They thereby signaled to any hostile tribesmen that they had no warlike intentions and traveled between sanctuaries under the protection of the Creator God. Members of the Hashim clan had a special advantage in this regard since they served as caretakers of the Kaaba and even coarse rural tribesmen respected their vocation. Bedouin children ran up to them, giggling and hawking fruit and water. Muhammad and his men would have passed through occasional adobe villages, roofs thatched with palm leaves, as they traversed the auburn steppe, interrupted by teal abal bushes and strewn with colorful loose chert.

Such travelers rode through the night beneath a spangled sky. At dawn the sun slowly flared behind low basalt hills, tinting the twisted crags with rose and violet, then embossing them in brass. They halted when the heat of the day grew too oppressive, catching some sleep and waiting for nightfall. After several days of riding, the party would have reached the date-palm oasis of Yathrib. There, happy to see some limpid pools and fruit-laden date and jujube trees after days of eating dust, they would have stocked up on water, dates, and other refreshments for the precarious arid trek north. A vassal of Sasanian Iran from the local pagan Khazraj tribe then ruled this city, but the Meccans had preserved their own neutrality between Iran and the Roman Empire.

Muhammad would have visited with his relatives in Medina. His great-grandmother Salma was a Khazraji woman of the Najjar clan. The Banu Najjar, despite being such distant cousins, would have valued their connection to Muhammad’s family, custodians of the sacred Kaaba. Medinans went on pilgrimage to the shrine of God in Mecca, though they also visited the temple they had erected to the goddess of fate, Manat.

Then Muhammad and his convoy would have set off again north in the late afternoon. When voyagers passed over patches of white sand, the granules glinted in the relentless sun like miniature diamonds. Thirst and discomfort beset the travelers, as distant mirages of sweet water spitefully vanished on their closer approach. Occasionally, they might have startled ranging herds of spear-horned oryx, which scattered with dazzling speed. Keening desert gales assailed them like the breath of a dragon, and when a sandstorm came up, it pricked their skin as though with innumerable tiny needles. The Meccans would have been inordinately grateful for the occasional majestic cumulus cloud that offered them some respite from the irate summer sun.

**

During the blistering day, when the sand scorched their feet, travelers huddled miserably in sheepskin tents, awaiting the gloaming to start their journey afresh. They typically accomplished some of the trip at night. The nocturnal journey challenged the camel drivers and their steeds, bouncing their passengers unevenly as their mounts stumbled blindly across jagged lava fields and rock-strewn dry riverbeds.

Such excursions depended on detailed Quraysh knowledge of the rugged countryside, of where the wells and oases lay and where robber bands might lie in wait. Occasionally, local tribes would have confronted Muhammad and the Quraysh, demanding that they pay out some of their goods for passage through that land. The Meccans are said to have bought off such hostile bedouins by offering carriage to them for their leather and other goods and a share of the profits on their return. Muhammad, a scion of the Banu Hashim, which specialized in settling feuds and keeping the peace around the Kaaba sanctuary, would have found himself forced to negotiate such challenges despite his youth and inexperience. If he failed, he could face raids and lose the whole value of his trading mission, ending his career as a long-distance merchant. If he did not bring back summer wheat from Syria, some of his friends might miss some meals.

The soft power of the Qur’an’s spiritual message has typically been underestimated

 

The Qur’an, read judiciously alongside later histories, suggests that during Muhammad’s lifetime, Islam spread peacefully in the major cities of Western Arabia. The soft power of the Qur’an’s spiritual message has typically been underestimated in most treatments of this period. The image of Muhammad and very early Islam that emerges from a careful reading of the Qur’an on peace-related themes contradicts not only widely held Western views but even much of the later Muslim historiographical tradition. This finding should come as no surprise. Life in medieval feudal societies did not encourage pacific theologies, and Muslims in later empires lost touch with the realities of the early seventh century. What if we read Jesus’s life and thought only through the lens of Pope Urban II, who launched the sanguinary Crusades in the Holy Land with the cry, “God wills it!”.

Prophet of Peace

 

He repeatedly sued for peace with a bellicose Mecca, but when that failed he organized Medina for self-defense in the face of a determined pagan foe. The Qur’an insists that aggressive warfare is wrong and that if the enemy seeks an armistice, Muslims are bound to accept the entreaty. This disallowing of aggressive war and search for a resolution even in the midst of violent conflict justifies the title “prophet of peace,” even if Muhammad was occasionally forced into a defensive campaign. The Qur’an contains a doctrine of just war but not of holy war and does not use the word jihad with that latter connotation. It views war as an unfortunate necessity when innocents, and the freedom of conscience, are threatened. It strictly forbids vigilantism and equates premeditated killing of noncombatants with genocide, paraphrasing in this regard Jewish commentaries on the Bible in the Jerusalem Talmud.

Freedom to say silly things without being challenged

“The conflation of ‘freedom of speech’ with ‘freedom to say silly things without being challenged’ and, more, ‘freedom to insist that people have to listen to me even if they think I’m ridiculous and/or dangerous’ is rarely quite as glaring as in this case.”