The Value of Mistakes

 

I've been working with my grandson Isaac over the last few weeks.  He's just turned nine.  He has a computer-based series of lessons he must do each day after school.  Each week is geared towards something they are currently learning at school in both Math and English language arts.

This week, we both got stumped by a lesson on prepositional objects.  The computer program he uses is designed to tell you when you get an incorrect answer and explain in detail why your reasoning was at fault as well as showing the correct answer and the reason why its correct.

But each time he got an answer wrong, Isaac's response was to (a) quit the whole unit and move on to another section that seemed easier or (b) simply say, "I got it wrong!" and immediately click over to the next problem and try his luck by guessing what the answer might be on the next problem.  He really was quite funny.  He'd tell me what he thought the answer was, might listen to my explanation of what I thought it might be, and if undecided he'd pretend it was multiple choice, say a prayer, choose an answer and exult or crash over the result. 

He was missing the value of what his mistakes might teach him.  

Wouldn't it be nice if life could work the way his computer program does?   

Life is never that easy though, is it?  

I've made some mistakes in my life. 

As I stand here on the edge of this new year of life and look back, I can see many of them quite easily.  I can count them on fingers and toes and start all over again.  Oh, I've made some mistakes!

Mistakes in friendships, in life choices, in raising children, in finances, in choice of words...Mistakes are going to happen.

There was a point in my life when I was gun shy from making too many of the wrong choices.  There was no computer program to explain to me why my choices were wrong.  It was something I had to figure out on my own and that was scary, especially after I had children.  It was no longer I who would live or die by my choices; it was my whole family.

But I didn't give up or quit.  I learned to slow down and not be hasty.  I learned to weigh the known pros and cons.  I learned I couldn't eliminate or choose based on the 'ifs' (If: I fear) that I faced. I had to choose based only on what I knew.  And I knew what I knew based on what I'd learned from making those past mistakes...

Other times, I had to do what Isaac did with his English lesson the other day.  I just had to pray and choose and hope it would all come out right!  I had no other choice, unlike Isaac who had the answer right before him.

It's a vicious circle.  Make a mistake and learn. Learn and learn and eventually get it right.  

But yeah...A computer program would have helped!