The problem with confidence

| Wednesday, October 26, 2011
No one else was standing up to tackle the problem. The professor waited and waited. So I stood up. I would take up the chalk. I went up, took a bow for the applause, and began. In correctly. Yep, misinterpreted the problem from the very start. After that I got along a bit better and stumbled to the final number correctly. Which I then read backward and again was wrong.

Now everyone has another bit of argument against standing up.

I suppose I could tie the baseline psychological phenomena here to more important things like protesting tyranny, but somehow the a+b=c -> 10a+10b+10c thing never quite works.

8 comments:

Nils said...

The second you lose the confidence to stand up it get's even worse. You might not see that happening immedeately, but it will transform you over time.
Continue to stand up and be proud if you fail: Other people would have given up, but you didn't.

Stabs said...

Always stand up. You got one-to-one private tuition worth $60 per hour, the rest got nothing.

Tesh said...

Isn't the point of school to learn, not demonstrate mastery? Not quite the same thing.

Klepsacovic said...

@Nils: I got the pride part right; I gave a bow at the end as well.

@Stabs: Good point!

@Tesh: It is, but when singled out, while the collective may be after education, the individual may worry about appearances.

stubborn said...

I'll say, as a college professor myself, that good teachers care more about who tries than who succeeds. Sure, in the end, you'll get a grade based on your success, but no college professor ever ONLY graded on test scores, no matter what they say to your face. If at first you don't succeed... write a blog about it? (;

Anonymous said...

Klep,

I always thought that you were a stand up kinda guy.

flosch said...

My problem with confidence are always the intervals. ;)

Klepsacovic said...

Statistics pun, boooo!

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