If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.
Sir Ken Robinson
Lately I've been tremendously inspired by Sir Ken Robinson and some of his ideas and reasoning on changing the current educational system. I'm including a link to the speech he made at the TED conference 2006. If you're interested click here. It's about 20 minutes long but well worth watching.
I think the mere idea of failure scares the life out of most of us. As a society we've become obsessed with success and progress but what we fail to understand is that failure is inevitably just a learning tool. An indispensable instrument of (personal) growth.
Photo courtesy of Mr. C, taken this summer in my mum's garden.
Just last week, I heard from the radio ( once again ), a psychology ( don´t remember who ) talking about this issue in connection with raising up children.
ReplyDeleteIt is so important to let - even small children - face setbacks, every now and then; as they appear.
Life is not about continuous success, and the earlier you realize this, the better means you have to face/ handle misfortunes.
We parents naturally wish to " save " our children from everything negative. Doing this, we are actually not doing them a favor, quite the opposite.
I, for one, have tried to raise mine in a bubble, and am now facing the consequences, along with my dear ones, who have yet to face the " real " world.
--------I meant to write psychologist, not psychology-------sorry/m
ReplyDeleteMette: Wow, thanks for this honest and very personal feedback. Writing this post it hadn't really occurred to me, but everything you wrote is so spot on.
ReplyDeleteI guess lately I've been way too self absorbed. As I contemplated the words from Sir Robinson, all I could think about is how it relates to my current circumstances.
I saw Sir Robinson's TED talk sometime last year and loved it.
ReplyDeleteI had children earlier than most of my friends hence managed to skip the trend of over-protectiveness that took hold of US parents in the late 80s and 90s. My son is now 33 and my daughter is 26. As self sufficient adults they are sometimes amazed by millennials struggling to cope with the challenges of adult life.
Susan: Most kids I see today are spoiled, completely self absorbed, they dominate all social interaction to the point of being completely unable to sit down for a cup of coffee with the mothers of these kids. But the scariest of all, they are bored and not properly motivated.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyyed reading your post
ReplyDelete