The "It's only a developmental error" Perspective

“A developmental error is not a mistake or a failure.” This is how Brother Ward started out our Humanities class on a beautiful Tuesday morning last week. The concept of a Developmental Error threw me a little at first.  Brother ward continued by saying that when you commit to work hard in your studies and that if you don’t get a topic or concept and miss a question on a test you are not a failure. You just haven’t found the way to correctly think about the topic or concept yet. When you have broken away from your previous way of thinking, and discovered the things you need to truly understand that which you do not understand you find deeper thinking which is the goal of the class. That is why when you do get a question wrong you need to not ask how you did after studying so long for the test, but ask why it is that you chose to pick the lesser answer. And also why is it that the correct answer is correct? Continuing on, Brother Ward expands by saying that it is a habit of thinking that keeps us trapped in this state of developmental error. Once again it’s those dang biases.

            Personally when I was in grade school it was my opinion that when I failed a test I was a failure. If I answered a question wrong in class or didn’t understand I was an idiot.  It was just my personal opinion that to get a “C” or heaven forbid an “F” was a serious offence and just showed off my lack of effort. And that was true sometimes. The ACT was the worst for me though. I spent hours studying and taking practice test for that test. Did I do well on it? No. I took the ACT three times and my highest score was only an eighteen. An eighteen! It was devastating. I am dyslexic. I have trouble testing, but honestly I never let that hinder my education. I never get extra help and I am proud of that. I guess when I do fail on a test I look down on myself, as if I haven’t tried enough. As if I am not good enough. Yes, I know that is not a correct way of thinking but its how I thought about incorrect answers.

            When Brother Ward came forward with this concept it finally dawned on me that sometimes you really just have not been able to completely break down the walls between you sub-conscience and conscience in order to truly understand the concept or idea. It was almost liberating in a sense to know that I wasn’t a failure I just had some more work I needed to do in order to truly master a certain concept. While I still don’t understand this idea to its deepest aspect I know now that I can with some work understand it. I am not a failure. I just need to work a little harder with my biases. And that is a wonderful insight.