Analysis Of To Err Is Wrong, By Roger Von Oech

There is an idea that can be a negative or positive force for self-improvement. This idea can take a life of its own and can run rampant on a person’s life if not handled well enough or ignore the existence of it, and just let it run its disastrous course. Failure is the idea that I am referring to, because of its ability to be a negative force that holds a person down or begin a new outlook in life where using the notion of failure as a motivating factor to improve oneself. However, most of the times when people are well conditioned to the concept of failing they will try their very best to avoid the sensation, or the experience failure because they fear the rejection from societies pre-set standards and become an outsider when they do fail.
For example, athletes who experience failure during practice will allow them to highlight their weaknesses and to use the errors the made as a reference for improvement. To Illustrate, sports are heavily dominated in perfectionism and often times failing is not an option because failure to them is the most stressful situation they can experience and they would go to such great lengths to avoid failing. According to Roger von Oech in his essay called To Err Is Wrong, he introduced the concept of “playing it safe” and he mentioned “Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experiences except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances” (Oech 6). Therefore, this can be problematic for athletes because they have placed themselves so high up on the pedestal to avoid failure and that this can be a painful, if they experience failing because the height they had set themselves at the higher they will fall, and it will be detrimental for their self-esteem; since, they might not comeback from falling so high on their imaginary
In the event, of a student failing a class such as math, English, or a science class a student who fail in this area could be an indication of a different learning progression, rather than a lack of knowledge in those subjects. I brought the idea of different learning progression because every student is different and they learn at a different phase than other students. For this purpose, student should not feel pressured trying to meet someone else’s standard for success because it will lower their self-esteem being placed in the lower rank in the grading system. Nevertheless, students should go at their own pace and meet their own standards for success that they have pre-set for themselves. For example, I was rather slow in my progression in learning how to write a paper because I have never written an essay when I was attending high school in the Philippines, and it was very challenging because I have to learn all these rules of how to write an effective essay. In comparison, to my sister’s learning progression in her writing she had progress at a faster rate in relation to my progress in writing. Though, I was a bit jealous in her success in writing and I for one was taking an introductory English class because I failed the writing portion of the entrance exam at El Camino College. But, I have come to realize people are different