Mistakes

We can learn tremendously from our own mistakes. This is true for just about any skill or academic subject.

In my Motion Media class, my project partner and I are trying to demystify the analog editing machine in order for it to work. Since following our notes alone got us no where, we proceeded to do a trial and error method, which started getting us somewhere. Eventually we got the assistance of an older student who’d already taken the class, but we’re still having trouble. Trial and error may be the only way for us to ever finish this project.

Another personal mistake occurred in Creative Writing class. We’d been given these packets that include several short stories from other students in the class. One of these stories….was dreadful. Absolutely terribly written. While editing it in my dorm room I complained to both my friends about how the point of view kept switching and how the language didn’t work for the fifth-grade main character.

It came time to review this story in class, and I found myself surreptitiously searching for the author of this story. I don’t know many of these students by name, so I was trying for a process of elimination thing. Hey, curiosity killed the Bridge, I’ll admit it.

I located one girl who was not participating in the discussion. She looked displeased with the discussion, and she wasn’t doing any of the discussing, so I immediately assumed this was the culprit of the poorly written story.

It turned out that I’d singled out the wrong person. The real author of the story was two seats to my right. She looked devastated on the inside after we’d pointed out the many mistakes. I mentally reprimanded myself for thinking that the sour looking girl on the other side of the room couldn’t write a story. It was this girl, the one that looked the part of a good writer, that was responsible.

When the teacher asked about her own thoughts about the reviews, I thought I could sense an utter sadness trying to well up in this girl. I thought she was on the edge of tears.

It was wrong for me to assume early on that the author had rushed writing the story and hadn’t bothered to edit. This girl was just not used to writing short stories. Her only writing experience came from research papers.

So there. I judged someone, and I felt like crap afterwards, but I feel I’ve learned something from this experience: It’s not only “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” it’s more like “Don’t judge someone for how they look, act, write, draw, speak, etc.” That’s a lot of criteria for not judging.