After watching Kathryn Schulz talk titled Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong, I have a different outlook on my beliefs and how I see the world. It is interesting to think that an issue or topic that I have a stance on and I think I am completely right on, someone can view the same issue or topic have the complete opposite stance and still think they are completely right. There aren’t many of my beliefs that I think I am wrong about, but then again if I thought they were wrong, why would they be my beliefs? Why would I believe in something that is wrong when in our society we are raised to think that the people who get stuff wrong, are lazy, irresponsible dimwits, and the way to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes.
This video showed me how large of an issue this is because if everyone walks around in their little bubble feeling very right about everything then errors are bound to occur. Errors like a surgeon performing a surgery on the motor vehicle crash victim’s ankle and leg; the surgery goes well until the surgeon is writing the postoperative orders and realizes that the surgery was performed on the wrong side of the patient’s body (Bailey). Another problem that occurs from everyone’s feeling of being right all the time is how it causes us to treat each other terribly. This occurs because if someone disagrees with us we first assume that they are ignorant. We assume that they must not know the facts because that is the only way that anyone could think that our view is the wrong view. However, when we find out that they are indeed well read on the subject at hand we come to the second assumption is the idiocy assumption. This is the assumption in which we think to ourselves that they are just idiots, because there is no way that an intelligent person could disagree with the point of view that you are supporting. Then after all of the pervious assumptions have been proven wrong, we come to the final assumption that they are just evil. We come the conclusion that they know the truth and that they are “deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes” (Schulz).
Kathryn Schulz’s talk was very interesting because of her speaking techniques. The way that she engaged her listeners with stories, analogies, images and quotes was an interesting yet effective way to capture the audience’s attention. As with most TED talks, if she were to stand up on the stage and go on and on about being wrong and stood their without moving around the stage, without have slides to accompany, support, and illustrate her talk then I as the viewer would have stopped paying attention and lost focus about 30 seconds into the speech. With the roadrunner analogy, the picture of the picnic bench that Kathryn mistook for a Chinese symbol, the pictures and text that appeared as the explained the “series of unfortunate assumptions” (Schulz), the surgeon story, interaction with audience and all of the other creative tools Kathryn used in her TED talk comes the promise of a successful presentation.
Kathryn’s talk really made me think about how being wrong applies to our school and education systems and how they interact with being wrong. When the students get an answer wrong they are penalized and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. The education system should be more lenient with wrongness because it will allow us to be more fearless and comfortable with being told that we are wrong. As Kathryn explained in her TED talk the human race has a lot of trouble with being wrong, and this is a problem for us as individuals as well as for the culture. But if we eliminate the harsh reprimands and consequences for incorrect answers then the fear of being wrong will lessen by a wide margin. As a student in school you are given tests, worksheets, and book problems and when you get an answer wrong on any of these methods of learning then your grade drops. In school everything is based on grades, so when your grade drops it is an issue. But if there were other styles and methods that could be used instead of an automatic penalization for wrong answers then it would greatly help to resolve the issue of the alarm and panic that people feel when they are wrong and especially when they are told that they are wrong.
While listening to the TED talk I thought about my personal experiences with being wrong. I don’t like being told that I’m wrong, especially when I am so confident that I’m not. There are even times when someone will tell me I’m wrong but I won’t believe it and will still think to myself that I am right. These instances occur especially when there is no factual evidence involved. While at the same time, I am willing to except my faults and realize that I am wrong in hopes to correct and expand my knowledge, or at least I like to think so. I encounter this same issue with my father almost every day. He is always right, about everything. However there are those issues, that, God help us, he is wrong about, and what’s even worse …… I was right! That is where my father and I run into issues. I have noticed as I have been making the transition into “adulthood” I have inherited a lot of my father’s characteristics. This means, I feel that there are a lot of things that I am right about, and while this has the ability to make me sound extremely conceited, snotty, and stuck-up, it’s not like that all the time. My father and I get into arguments a lot of the time because he or I don’t agree on something and neither of us is willing to back down. However, what generally happens is, regardless of the truth, he is right, and I as the child just have to accept it and admit defeat. But what this makes me wonder is how these arguments will affect me later in life. Will being told that I am wrong finally make me except it, or will I always be this headstrong?
Another issue that Kathryn mentioned in her TED talk is the embarrassment that comes with being wrong. If I’m in class and my teacher calls on me for an answer and I get it wrong, I blush, and when I blush it is very noticeable. I’ve grown up in a society and a school system where I have been taught that being wrong is embarrassing, that it means there is something wrong with you personally. While that assumption is not even remotely close to the truth, its still hard to deal with. So in an attempt to avoid this pit feeling, we become perfect students, we become over-achievers, and we become perfectionists. But in reality, the horrible feeling that we as humans associate with being wrong, has nothing at all with the actual act of being wrong. Being wrong feels like nothing, in fact being wrong feels like being right, because we have no internal cue to let us know that we are wrong about something. We get that terrible, embarrassing feeling when we are told we are wrong, and our fears are confirmed.
Works Cited:
Bailey, Melissa. "Doctor Operates On Wrong Leg | New Haven Independent." New Haven Independent — It's Your Town. Read All About It. 02 Nov. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
Schulz, Kathryn. "Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Apr. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment