Fear

Most of us are afraid of making mistakes. We live in a culture that tends to despise mistakes. Children (and adults as well) need to know that it’s okay to make a few mistakes. If a child is sitting in a classroom spending most of his or her time worrying about looking foolish, they’re not going to reach their full learning potential. This idea ties into my strong belief in creating a community of learners that tells us “knowledge develops through a gradual accommodation of our own personal understandings that eventually achieves a ‘relative fit’ with the meaning intended by the other person.” (Meek p. 326) The reason I chose this excerpt was because of the ‘relative fit’ part. Students will be less fearful and therefore better learners if they know that there are few questions that have just one answer.