A couple days ago, I had a quote quiz on A Tale of Two Cities. When my teacher put the quotes up on the board, I blanked. My head was empty. I chose a quote and ran with it. Making up things on the fly, and hoping that whatever I was writing had something to do with the context of the quote.
After I turned the quiz in, and time was up, I looked up the quote and all hope of maybe getting something right was gone. I was wrong about everything. As wrong as one could possibly be. I could have unsubmitted the quiz, and quickly written the correct answer, but my guilty conscience didn’t let myself.
The most frustrating part of this disaster of a quiz, was that I actually did read. I just didn’t understand. And how could I remember certain lines, if I couldn’t even grasp the main idea? That point alone has a lot of issues in it, I’m aware. Why didn’t you ask for help understanding? Why didn’t you go back and read the parts that didn’t stick? Why didn’t you do anything, to try to understand?
This realization of just how wrong I got it was embarrassing. I couldn’t stop picturing my teacher reading my response in horror and giving me a big ZERO. Maybe it would be accompanied by a haunting “private comment” that would emerge unwanted in my inbox, questioning how I could have possibly messed up this bad? Worst of all, this quote quiz screams that I did not read the assigned chapters. My teacher will likely read my response with the disappointment that another student blew off the reading, when in actuality, I did it!
Fortunately, I can assume that my teacher will not maliciously call me out on my wrongs, and probably will not care as much as I am assigning meaning to the quiz, but this experience begs the question, why is messing up in school so embarrassing?
I had another experience in Spanish class, where my presentation wasn’t as long as everyone else’s. Although I received an A and filled all the requirements of the assignment, I was embarrassed. I was sent into a spiral of “I’m not good enough” thoughts. But why?
Messing up in school, getting things wrong, or failing when you’ve tried your best is looked down upon in school. How are we supposed to grow, if we’re so afraid of messing up? Personally, I don’t answer the question when I only think I’m right, but I’m not 100% sure. I don’t throw myself into a topic if I might be wrong. School should encourage mistakes so that students can improve their problem solving, resilience, and most importantly, their confidence in their classes.
Tilly,
Believe it or not, it actually speaks volumes about you that you care so much about your effort, preparation, and perception by teachers. I will say that Annie Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” definitely promotes the idea that we all start from a place of non-perfection, and that these first stages of just getting it figured out are, in fact, crucial to learning!
Those quote quizzes were brutal, I can totally relate haha! The “private comment” part made me laugh out loud!! Somehow, it all usually ends up OK even with not getting points on a 5-point quote quiz every once in a while!
As a former 11 Advanced English student, I was terrible at quote quizzes! I’m really bad at recalling quotes I read, but I still did fine in the class regardless of my terrible quote quiz scores. Good luck with Dickens (you will probably need it, that was not a fun unit)