'If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original...and we are running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.' Ken Robinson
Classrooms. A classroom. The classroom. Classroom.
I've been thinking a lot about this word lately. (Well, you say, you're a teacher. Duh.)
I studied English, and part of the study of English is that you think critically about words. I'm tired of people slagging off English because 'oh yeah, I like reading, but I'm just not interested in all the ANALYSING of EVERY LITTLE DETAIL, you know?' Yes ok I get it, pathetic fallacy isn't all that creative (oh, the pouring rain that makes Marianne Dashwood mortally ill is obviously a symbol of the destructive nature of her love for Willoughby blah blah blahhhhh) but that's not the point I'm making here (and it's also a separate post, I think!) What I'm getting at is that words, in all their glory, are signifiers. Their etymology and their history create in us a complex chain of reactions and connotations when we hear them that we probably don't even realise we're processing, but these processes largely pre-dictate our responses.
So. Let's take a critical look at the word 'classroom'.
Firstly, its word-category. It's a compound noun made up of the words 'class' and 'room'. Good.
Class
Dear readers, please take a moment to notice all of your reactions to the word 'class'. What does it mean for you?
Social structure (lowerclass, middleclass, upperclass)
Ranking (classification; both in terms of creating order and academic achievement. 'Did you get a First Class Honours? Ooh, smartypants. With that level of degree I'm sure you'll soon have a job that will allow you to travel business class too!') This last example also suggests social elitism and separation - you only travel business class if you have the means to buy the ticket (or the looks to get upgraded).
Restriction (sorry, that's classified)
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
So, when we enter the classroom, we carry with us all of these associations. And indeed they're reflected in the way that classrooms are organised, with learners often separated onto tables reflecting their 'ability', or the creation of separate ability classes entirely. The classroom is a microcosm of the way we have chosen to structure the world outside it. (Well done Charlie, you have so far discovered nothing new.)
Enter my snazzily reformed name for the place of learning: The Mistake Room!
'Ooh,' you say, 'That's interesting...' but you shift uncomfortably at the mention of the word 'mistake'.
Mistake - another compound noun 'mis'-'take', like 'false-start', if you will.
I notice that a lot of my learners, young and old, whatever their ability, believe that their mistakes in the *cough* 'place of learning' are UTTERLY WRONG and mean they are BAD and they MUST BE ELIMINATED.
And yet. Who ever made a mistake that they didn't learn from? It's like in The Lion King, when Rafiki smacks Simba round the head with his stick to prove exactly the same point. It hurts, but what are you going to do about it? Steal the monkey's stick the second time he makes a swing for you. It may be painful and embarrassing at the time, but it may just open the door to great discovery, creativity, self-affirmation and yes, real learning.
I had a great English teacher in the run-up to GCSEs who sat us down just before our mock exams and said, 'Now is the time to make mistakes girls. Now is the time to get it ALL WRONG. The more 'mistakes' you can make now the better, because then the more we'll have to work with. You are absolutely, 100%, completely safe to make mistakes right now.'
That was the first time that I ever considered that mistakes could be a positive thing. Think of the amount of stuff that was discovered by mistake. America. Yogurt. Cheese. I wonder how many dud lightbulbs Thomas Edison made before it finally worked. If he'd never had the courage to risk making a mistake, he'd have joined all the other apes laughing at him for thinking he could create 'fake sunlight' and, well, complex surgery would still be carried out by candlelight. The whole point of making something, be it art or science, is being able to look at a thing and think 'Hmm, if I just have a fiddle with that and a tinkle with this, maybe it'll make something new and cool. But maybe it won't. Maybe the bridge won't hold (that's why we're making a prototype), or maybe I'll end up asking the Italian waiter 'where are you?' instead of 'where can we sit?' But what will I really lose from it if it does go wrong?' When the prototype crumbles, or when the Italian waiter stares at you like you're a loony and asks if English would be better (sigh), instead of running away and kicking ourselves, we can think 'Hmm, ok, that didn't work so well. I wonder why. Let's have another play and find out.'
If I can encourage my students to feel safe making mistakes in our lessons, to stop apologising for the fact that they're experimenting with new grammar and vocabulary and sometimes sound a bit strange (any students reading this, THANK YOU for some of the mistakes you make in your writing, they provide no end of staff-room hilarity), to recognise 'mistakes' as portals of opportunity, I'll feel I've made it as a teacher.
You are safe here. I'll catch you if you stumble.
Mistakes are good
Allow yourself to feel vulnerable to mistakes during the lesson and see where it leads you.
If we created a world in which making mistakes was the aim of being in 'The Mistake Room', where they were celebrated instead of stigmatised, and if we could take perfection off its pedestal, how much happier, more creative and more balanced would society be?
