CONQUER…EMBRACE
CHRISTIAN LUIS V. DIZON
What are mistakes? What are errors? Why are they the dilemma and the trauma – causing factors of students and teachers alike in the school? What are the effects and aftermath of committing mistakes and errors in class? Can they be avoided?
Mistakes and errors are everywhere. And everybody commits them. They are a part of everybody’s routine and system, whether they are committed intentionally or on purpose or not. They cannot be measured figuratively, but the impact of their degrees and intensity can be felt. Inside the classroom, during school hours, mistakes are often encountered during activities and examinations. And in the part of the students, they often become evident every time an incorrect answer or improper solution is given or provided. And the reactions afterwards are different from all four sides. There are those who give side comments from one group, criticisms from other groups, mimicking from another and baptizing of monikers from another. In short, destructive criticisms. And no subject is exempted, even in Science, during experimentations where mistakes and errors are expected to occur and be committed when a student tends to forget to pour the suggested amount of solution or places more agent that what is recommended, in MAPEH during dance rehearsals when some are pouring their hearts out but still are having difficulty following the choreography and during sports classes where others are really having a hard time with their composure, and stance in catching or throwing the balls and doing the drills, and don’t forget in T.L. E. during cooking classes when a student adds more ingredient unintentionally because of excitement or nervousness.
In classes, mistakes and errors must be embraced by everybody in all subject areas. And teachers must not forget that the sole purpose of why there are pupils and students in schools is because they are meant to commit such mistakes and errors, and as teachers, they must guide their students and teach them to learn how to control their emotions every time they commit an error, to take things lightly after each time a mistake occurs upon them. Teachers also commit mistakes. How or when? Every time a student gives the correct answer or provides the correct solution to a problem, and the teacher did not acknowledge the student in a positive way is a mistake on the part of the teacher. Each time a student fails to give the appropriate answer and the teacher failed to assist or guide the student towards the correct answer right then and there is another mistake. And the worst is some teachers themselves are the ones giving students aliases or monikers.
Teachers must not forget that they are there to make the students realize that committing mistakes is a part of life, that they are committed not to turn themselves or others down, but to make them stronger and tougher and to stand up and face the world. Of course nobody’s perfect, so nobody’s exempted. They must always anticipate that students are meant to fall down and commit errors in classes, regardless of how clear instructions are given to them. While doing these, teachers must also asses or evaluate themselves if they were able to acknowledge their students, if they were able guide them to the right solution or answer, if they were able to make them face their fears. Because if teachers failed to do these, then there’s a problem on their parts. And results will be coming, one after the other, a chain reaction or domino effect.
Mistakes and errors are parts of our system. It’s up to us on how we’re going to handle them and how we’re going to deal their effects. No one is exempted, students and teachers alike. Everybody must know or learn how to conquer their fears in committing mistakes and embrace their errors, not to tumble, but to stand and try again until those mistakes and errors are corrected.