“Miss the Mark, Get Set, Go!” Don’t Let Your Child Get Used To Making Small Mistakes

This article is part of a mini-series by Dr Henry Toi (Affiliate Director of the Institute for the Habits of Mind) who will share and explain the ways you can guide your children to cultivating good, lifelong habits.

“I’m done!”

Little Dylan gleefully handed in his class assignment, with a little less than ten minutes to spare before the bell rang for lunch. Teacher Debra took a quick glance at the worksheet, and shook her head. Although she had already instructed the class several times that day, Dylan still managed to scrawl his answers on the left instead of right column, and got some of the simple additions wrong. Having taught Dylan for a few months now, Teacher Debra knew that he could do these sums, so it was disappointing that her student did not strive to be more accurate in his work.

Reread, Rethink, Review

Remember when you were the one rushing out error-filled emails because you had a football match to rush to? Well, your children may be equally careless when turning in their work. When you ask if they have checked their work, they usually say yes, but give little thought to the meaning of checking for accuracy. Their concept of checking may be limited to checking if their names are written on the top left hand corner, or if they have handed in the English assignment to the right teacher. They seem to feel little inclination to reflect on the accuracy of their work. In most cases, hastiness over getting the assignment out of the way surpasses their desire for craftsmanship.

Striving for accuracy is not the same as being overly fastidious about things, or being “anal”, or even nitpicking on details. Instead, this habit stems from consciously taking pride in our work. When we take pride in what we do, we do it well since we naturally take the extra effort to ensure quality and precision.

For example, if you tell a student that his essay is going to be read by the President, what kind of attitude do you think he will have towards his work? For starters, we can be sure that he will check and recheck to make sure that the grammar, punctuation and spelling are impeccable. He will most probably share his essay with friends and mentors to ensure that the ideas presented in the essay are sound and well presented. He will most certainly review it several more times before he is satisfied with the quality of his work. This student, who may be on his way to becoming a successful writer, has demonstrated what work ownership is all about, and by extension, given his creation the respect it deserves.

Most of us will not be writing essays for the President or playing music for the Pope. But it’s important that we do our best no matter who the audience is, and that our works remain precisely executed, because they represent us as creators. Behind every great masterpiece is hours and hours of labour, borne from the artist’s continual strive for accuracy in the delivery. As onlookers, we can often perceive and respect this painstaking effort, and we are thus moved by both the end product and the process behind its creation. Closer to home, remember how you get all teary eyed when you receive a Mother’s Day card scrawled in bright yellow crayon from your child, with perfect spelling to boot?

Historic Faux Pas

On a more serious note, history has also taught us how seemingly minor errors could snowball into something so catastrophic that innocent lives were lost and billions of dollars literally blew up in smoke. In June 1996, a $7 billion unmanned Ariane 5 rocket launched by the European Space Agency exploded just 40 seconds after lift-off. Investigations revealed that the cause of the failure was a software calculation error in the inertia reference system. An equally expensive faux pax happened in May 2014 when French state-owned railway company SNCF reported that 2,000 new trains were too wide for many station platforms. Although these examples bear no casualties, they clearly demonstrate how small miscalculations could lead to serious consequences. Unfortunately, much in history is littered with problems caused by such inaccuracies.

Returning to the story of Dylan. Teacher Debra called Dylan over and said “Dylan, have a look at your work again. How can you improve your accuracy?” Dylan looked at the worksheet carefully and squirmed, a sheepish look on his cherubic face. Teacher Debra smiled and said, “You know what you need to do right?” Dylan took the paper and went back to his desk to work on the mistakes. A few minutes and a few thorough checks later,  little Dylan confidently handed in his perfectly filled out worksheet.

Although the habit of striving for accuracy does not come naturally to most children, it can always be taught and cultivated.