When I was young, I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work.
—George Bernard Shaw
Unfortunately that quote reminds me of when I was in first grade, about six years old. I loved school, learning new things, and especially filling out the workbooks they gave us. Until one day the teacher came up and praised me, telling me I was the only kid in the class who had never made a mistake in the workbooks. I loved the teacher and she meant well, but it turned out to be a horrible thing for her to say. Suddenly there were expectations I had to live up to, and I started worrying about making mistakes. It took me years to get back to that little kid.
I’m sorry, GBS, I’m with Heraclitus.
That works for women too.
February 8, 2021
Words Matter. especially when said to little children.
why do people never get that?
I loved her, and she meant well.
I don’t know if this is an appropriate analogy, but …..
I can’t recall my parents ever criticizing anything I tried. (Correcting yes, but not criticizing.) As much as they loved me, I was left woefully unprepared for Real Life.
My folks told me Real Life sucked, stay a kid as long as I could. That was scary, so it motivated me.
I wish I had stayed a kid longer. Wait a minute, I’ve been a kid for years now in my retirement! What goes around comes around.
I’ve been retired for over 27 years now, and when people ask me what I’m doing I say, “Enjoying my second childhood even more than my first one.” I have not flunked retirement. 🙂
Oh the pressure!
🙂
I agree with your quote 100% and the other one makes no sense to me at all. Is too early in the morning for me to remember an example but I can’t tell you how many times I had a teacher or someone say something to me that totally messed with my mind very similar what your teacher said to you and she probably thought it was a good thing to praise you. I am easily a person to have pressure put on me and it would have done the same thing to me
I’m sure some other kids might have reacted completely differently, and I eventually got back to doing things for the sheer joy of it. I didn’t stay stuck forever.
Like Ginny said, Oh the pressure. Especially for a child
And the teacher was trying to be friendly. Another kid might have reacted completely differently.
I remember my 3rd grade teacher telling the class my penmanship was perfect & those in class should follow my example. If only she could see my cursive writing now…like a doctor’s handwriting. Messy and unreadable.
Things do change. 😀
Words matter no matter how old you are…sometimes even the tone they are said in can mean all the difference.
She was being friendly and giving me a compliment. I still remember her fondly.
I’d be horrified if nine out of ten things I did were failures. And when I have a failure, I don’t do ten times more work, I think about where I went wrong and how I can do better next time. It’s a rather strange quote.
Most unfortunate that you were so upset about a remark that the teacher probably meant as a confidence-boosting compliment. But as you say, it just made you a bit too self-conscious.
I suppose the quote was meant to be motivational, to encourage people to work harder. That’s not my style.
It all worked out fine. I eventually figured out how to stop worrying about my image, and I learned a lot in the process. It’s all good.