Before we dive in, I just want to submit that anyone in need of a pure yet in depth conversation should really consider having conversations with children. Their minds are so much more powerful than they are given credit for. Another enlightening conversation came from trying to encourage my tutee to respond to my questions with confidence. Confidence. We’ve all heard this word many times before, we can tell by the context clues that confidence is good, we strive to have it, and enough of it that we display it proudly to the world. Well, what is confidence to you, really? How often do we truly think about it? When I asked my tutee if she could explain confidence, she shook her head no.

I thought about how to explain it to her and this is my explanation of confidence:

“When I say I want you to show more confidence, I’m telling you that I need you to prove to me that you believe in yourself. You need to believe in your brain giving you the correct answer, you need to believe in your thinking, and just answer. Afterwards, if you are incorrect, confidence is receiving help and learning from your mistake. How can you show me you have confidence? Say what’s on your mind, tell me the first thing that comes to mind, and say it with the belief that you’re likely right. Because here’s the kicker, even if you aren’t right, that’s what I’m here for, to guide you, and to keep moving you forward. Stop wasting your time skimming through your brain JUST because you don’t believe the answer that’s on the tip of your tongue. In life there will always be moments when you are right and moments when you are wrong. There will be moments when you can take a little time to use your resources and do the research and moments when you need to answer swiftly (typically, with me she needs to answer swiftly). Speaking of answering, whether you are correct doesn’t determine anything about your worth, it just determines how we can move forward with our lesson. If you take 15 seconds to tell me the letter, whether you get it right or wrong, you wasted 14 seconds, and we could have continued our lesson right after I corrected you or praised you. You cannot become so afraid of being wrong that you waste time or fear asking for guidance. Believe in yourself, and in your answer, and if you happen to be wrong, I’ll walk you through it.”

Her scrunched face relaxed as she shook her head yes. She also proved she knew what I was saying immediately. After this conversation we completed our phonics review and she gave her answers with pride, speed, and 90% accuracy. I stopped her for a moment once we finished and she was shocked that I stopped her, asking me “Wasn’t that confidence?” I told her it was, and that I was VERY proud and I wanted to point out how even though she missed a couple, she was kindly corrected and we kept moving. We moved throughout the lesson fluently, with her even expressing a desire to do more writing (I guess the joy of writing is kicking in).

Let this be a lesson to us all. Being incorrect about something is not the devastating blow to our worth that our egos would lead us to believe. I know this is a struggle I deal with in adulthood. I waste time making the moves I want to make for fear of them not being ‘perfect’ or fear of doing something wrong. We live in a culture that discourages being incorrect and rewards correct answers, which is okay, we shouldn’t encourage the idea that 2+2= 6 just to spare feelings. However, we have to recognize the effort it takes to answer and potentially be wrong by adopting the mindset that you learn from your mistakes, not that you are less for making them. Once you allow your learning space to become a culture where mistakes aren’t so bad, you can get through a lesson with a lot less anxiety from the students, and a lot more engagement with student answers. Does the fear of failure sometimes hold you back? How many of us are afraid to move forward because of a fear of failure or getting “it” wrong?