The True Meaning of Mistakes by Rees

The True Meaning of Mistakes by Rees - July 2020 Scholarship Essay

A classroom should be a space where mistakes and failed attempts should not only be tolerated but also encouraged. The classroom should be an area where making an effort is more important than succeeding and where students aren’t afraid of trying. Sadly many modern classrooms value the correct answer over the mistakes made along the way. However, in my opinion, mistakes have more potential than the final correct answer. My dream classroom would recognize the potential growth given by a wrong answer; and rather than disregarding this learning experience, my classroom would capture the potential from a simple mistake and enhance the student’s knowledge of what went wrong and how to fix it. This classroom would not be focused on convenience, we would focus on mastering the material and expanding our knowledge of the world.
I imagine a world where every classroom focuses on how to use mistakes to our advantage. I imagine a classroom where not even the smallest mistakes go unnoticed, where the convenience of the student and teacher have less value than the quality of the education. As a student, I am tired of seeing students and teachers let mistakes pass by unsolved. I see every ignored mistake as lost potential for the student. The classroom I want to be in recognizes the value in every mistake and respects what that potential means for the students’ education.
If every classroom creates an atmosphere that values mistakes we would create students that strive for excellence. Students that wouldn’t settle for the bare minimum, students that want to better themselves and others, students that wouldn’t let our world settle for anything but the best. Students from my dream classroom would create a world where a mistake means there’s room to improve rather than a reason to criticize.