How Society Punishes Being Wrong

It struck me the other day that people hate being wrong, and will go to extreme lengths to avoid ever being caught being wrong. That's not news - that's human nature.

The thought occurred to me even if it is human nature, the United States school system reinforces it throughout our childhood, with a culmination in our teenage years. Think about it for a minute. Being wrong on a test means you get lower grades. It's hammered into us over and over that lower grades mean fewer, worse opportunities. Getting high grades means opportunity for advanced courses, which give better opportunities. The message that teenagers receive is "if you get stuff wrong, then you're hurting yourself and your future. Being wrong is bad. You must do your best to be right."

This is exacerbated when students who had lower grades manage to turn themselves around. They've learned from their mistakes, become wiser. They were wrong, but they're right now, so surely they'll get the same opportunities as the others who are right? Nope. People remember that they were wrong before, it's recorded and it's held against them. Your first employers might want to know your GPA, since you don't have a good amount of employment history.

It doesn't end when you graduate high school, or after graduating from college. Workplaces work the same way. Being wrong, making a mistake, it's held against you for years if you stay with the same employer. Even if you've proven that you've learned from it, no one cares about that unless you're able to argue the point.

People may hate being wrong, but when being wrong is punished by everyone in a position of power, it's no wonder.

But you know what's better than being wrong or being right? Being thought wrong and then being proven to be right all along. Because now you have the reputation of being right and everyone else was wrong, which implicitly puts you in a position of power.

It's not necessarily the school system's fault. History is rife with examples of how people and organizations fought hard against being proven wrong. Copernicus vs the Church, systemic racism vs the civil rights movements. But schools are in a unique place to address it at the source - the youth.

Is there anything that schools can do to teach people that it's okay to be wrong sometimes, as long as they learn? So people aren't terrified of being wrong?

Submitted February 11, 2021 at 10:41PM by NeoRyu777 https://ift.tt/2NofRdZ