Being wrong can be deadly as in the case of a sky-diver not knowing how to fold a parachute. It’s important to understand the risks of what you are doing and whether they could be serious. The mistakes I’m referring to here aren’t the serious type. They are the choices we make everyday. Accumulated over years these seemingly trivial choices become significant in their impact on your life.

Being wrong is not inherently bad. What matters is what you think about it. If you think badly of being wrong or worry that others will think badly of you for having failed, you make it bad. The power comes from you not the error. It’s not about being wrong, it’s about your self-image. Take the content of this blog for instance. I will undoubtedly be wrong many times. When I am, I will either choose to beat myself up about it, dismiss it, try to pass it off as another’s mistake, or discover and learn the associated lesson. Only in the last case is positive energy created; it’s energy for change instead of destructive energy. It’s all a matter of how you approach being wrong.

Being wrong is good if you learn from it. People can learn from the accomplishments and mistakes others make, but the most powerful lessons come from your own triumphs and errors. The results of being wrong are the prices you pay for the lesson. Not learning from an error is an even bigger mistake because you are more likely to repeat the mistake, paying multiple times for the same lesson. Even this is okay if you eventually learn the lesson—it’s just more costly than learning the first time.

Being wrong is an indicator of how much or little you are learning. If you find you are seldom wrong it’s because you aren’t pushing your capabilities. When you find yourself in that situation, look for good risks to take in the work you’re already doing or choose something new to pursue.

Things to teach:

• Be willing to be wrong if the risk is not serious
• If the risk is serious take appropriate care
• Being wrong is not inherently good or bad—you make it that way
• Examine mistakes to uncover the lessons hidden within
• Notice an error vacuum and if encountered, look for new challenges

How to teach:

• Talk with your child about your mistakes and what you’ve learned
• When embarking on something new, talk about the risks with your child
• Celebrate mistakes as the opportunities they are
• Guide your child in identifying and weighing risks when they make decisions
• Help your child examine their mistakes to find the lessons
• Challenge your child when they master subjects

Compulsory education in America trains children to look for one right answer. The approach makes their job easier. It works with their testing systems. It helps them justify their existence. Nonetheless, it doesn’t work for children when they become adults. So what should we do about it?

Like many questions we face as adults, there isn’t only one right answer. Focusing on teaching using the only one solution approach isn’t right. I offer these alternative approaches, one or more of which may be the right answer for you and your children:

• When you teach problem solving, make determining the likelihood of there being only one right answer a step in the process
• Be aware of problems your child encounters that have multiple right answers, point them out, and help them learn ways to choose
• Encourage your child to look for other right answers when it appears there is only one

I’m not suggesting you say, “Yes, that’s right!” to plainly incorrect answers like some people do. I’m recommending you foster the multiple right answer perspective because it increases creativity and open-mindedness. It also informs children that there are at least thirty-one right answers to the question, “What flavor ice cream would you like?”

1. List the options
2. Determine what the best alternative option would be for each (these are the opportunity costs)
3. Compare the costs

When choosing between two options a quick comparison of the options and costs will make plain the most rational choice. When there are more than two options the most frequently listed cost is the best choice. Determining and comparing the opportunity costs when making choices helps us prevent the self-serving bias in our nature from prevailing over rationality. This in turn helps us improve our situation whether physical, mental, spiritual, or financial. The motives we had as children won’t serve us as adults. If they did I would still be wearing my clothes over my pajamas.

How this Shortcut Saved Me Four Hours of Meeting Time

I started this project on a common route: my team brainstormed a topic for thirty minutes and spent five minutes talking about relationships between some of the ideas. It was enough time to capture the elements of the topic, but not enough to capture all the relationships. I meant to take another 30 minutes in the next meeting to finish discussing the relationships and another thirty minutes to capture it in a more useful format. Before the next meeting occurred, I decided to try the shortcut. In less than an hour I created a diagram. Instead of meeting with the team to discover the relationships, I met with them to review the relationships I had already discovered. We reviewed the diagram (making two changes) in about ten minutes. Team members gave unsolicited and uncharacteristic praise about how helpful the diagram was. All six of the people in the room left with the same mental picture of the elements and their relationships! Had I followed my previous plan each of us would have had a different mental model. It is likely that none of them would be complete and the process would have taken fifty more minutes. Multiply that savings by all six people and subtract the time it took me to understand the topic while creating the diagram and you’ll see that we saved a whopping four hours of time with better results! The gains in learning speed and comprehension can result in any learning setting.

The Shortcut

The technique that made this all possible is concept mapping. It was developed by Joseph D. Novak and his research students (he wrote about using concepts maps to enhance learning in his book, Learning How to Learn). A concept map is basically a diagram of concepts that address a focus question. Lines connect related concepts and are labeled with one to three words that explain the relationship. I think the best way to describe a concept map is to show you one. Look at this diagram. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

By exploring this diagram you learned many things about concept maps. Had I tried to write this as clearly in prose it would have taken many paragraphs. I venture to guess that your knowledge of concepts maps is now so good that if you think about it you also know the basics of how to create one, without receiving instructions! Imagine how much prose would be required to give that instruction and you begin to understand the power of concept mapping. What you may not appreciate yet is that the act of creating a concept map will help you learn a subject. Of course, to fully understand you need to try creating one yourself.

Your Opportunity

This is your chance to choose the shortcut—learn to use a tool that can save you incredible amounts of time. Don’t bypass the shortcut without trying it. Naturally, concept maps can be drawn by hand, but I find that using software is better for teasing out the relationships between concepts—use your favorite drawing program or a special purpose package like CmapTools from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Either way, try it with something you’ve got on your mind, even something simple. I think you’ll make it part of your routine. After you try this shortcut please leave a comment sharing how it worked for you.

P. S. I’ll write about using concept maps in homeschool and unschool situations in an upcoming post.

The problems plaguing ancient people apparently aren’t all that different from those we still face. More than 2000 years ago the Roman orator Cicero (106 BCE to 43 BCE) listed the following six mistakes of man:

1. The delusion that individual advancement is made by crushing others
2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences
5. Neglecting development and refinement of mind and not acquiring the habit of reading and study
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do

I have carried this list in one form or another for neigh on twenty years. I occasionally read over this list, but this is hardly necessary anymore. They have become part of my own credo.It occurred to me this evening that knowing of these mistakes so that I can work to avoid them has been a material contributor to my happiness and so they must be taught to my children. Just as I have reflected on them when I see the results of one of the mistakes playing itself out in the world (in order to cement it in my mind), I will use our modern-day opportunities to teach these lessons to my children.

Your life is the result of actions taken in a series of present moments. What you do in the current moment is what matters. The past is gone and cannot be changed. As I covered in Being Wrong, you should spend enough time thinking about the past to learn from errors, but dwelling there, like obsessing over the future, is a waste of present moments. Additionally, when you perseverate over the past or future you are likely to beat yourself up or succumb to fear. Avoid this mental self-abuse by cultivating the ability to bring yourself back to the present moment where your choices and actions have meaning.

The ability to stay in the present can be developed through mindfulness practice. Meditation can greatly enhance your ability to stay in the present moment. This simple lesson can improve your focus:

Things to Teach:

• Mindful breathing

How to Teach:

• Sit quietly with your child and go through the following steps with them:
  • Close your eyes
  • Relax
  • Focus your attention on your breathing—feel it go in and out. Don’t try to change it, just feel it.
  • Do this for a few minutes

• You will find that your mind often wanders to the past, future, or some present distraction. It’s okay. Notice it in a non-judgmental way then bring your attention back to your breathing. It may help you to count your breaths. When you find that you cannot remember what number you are on you’ll know your mind wandered—start over. With practice you will improve your ability to stay focused in the present. Start out doing this for five minutes and increase the time as you improve.

Developing self-awareness and the ability to stay present will enhance your life by reducing stress and improving decision making. Staying in the present moment is even the key to overcoming procrastination and enjoying guilt-free play.