While sitting in class one day, I realized how many students began their statements with, “This could be totally wrong, but…” It made me start to think of all the phrases we use to have an easy out. We are so afraid of being wrong and making mistakes that we provide ourselves a back door to quickly escape ridicule for having an incorrect answer.
Here are some of our cop outs:
Who cares if you are? That is what the process of learning is. “You either win or you learn,” as the great Nelson Mandela once said. You even remember things better when you get them wrong first. As an English major I’m used to interpretation and if you think about it as interpretation for everything you answer, your feelings are hurt a lot less. For math or science, it can be a little more black and white with right and wrong answers, but there is only one way to go and that’s up.
“I’m not an expert, but…”
You’re in college, we know you aren’t an expert. If you are it will certainly show in your response, but that is not necessary to lead with. You wouldn’t require those you speak with on a daily basis to establish that they are not an expert in what they are speaking about. So why do we say it in class?
“I think/believe/feel..”
I call these our mission statements. This may seem inaccurate, but read the statements “I think that the author is over-simplifying the issue,” versus “The author is over-simplifying the issue,” and examine the perceived power differences. There is a reason why your high school English teachers had you remove these “mission statements” from your essays. So why shouldn’t we remove them from our class discussions?
“…, but I’m a girl.”
I really did hear this in class; I’m not making this up. This woman didn’t know her words would have this effect on me, nor did she know where this would lead me, but it gave me a chance to think about what we say. Yes, males and females have fundamental differences, but those differences have nothing to do with the classroom. It also made me wonder why we refer to college males as men, but college females as girls. Girls go through puberty first, yet even after their transition, we can’t call them women (but that’s an article for another day). Our society is still under the impression that as women our power is automatically diminished. It reminds me of Always’ “Like a Girl” or the Ban Bossy campaigns.
Just like I want women to take back their power, I want students, colleagues, everyone to take back the power of their words. My call to action is to stop using these phrases altogether. I want society to be okay with being wrong. What’s so wrong with being wrong anyway? You live and you learn. People should own what they say.