Interesting isn’t it, how we confuse what people do for what they are? I mean by this the way we describe someone as being, for example, original: an original thinker, an original artist or an original writer rather than simply describing what they actually do as being original. Clearly this is completely inaccurate. No one is more original than anyone else.
This kind of subtle misattribution might be ok when we’re dealing with job titles: secretary, waiter, artist etc. but the real problems start when we begin to internalize negatively weighted attributions: “I’m unoriginal”, “I’m a failure”, “I’m no good at that.” Such self-perceptions are only ever something we resign ourselves to: they’re a declaration that we’ve given up trying and that we’ve come to the conclusion that further effort is futile. Indeed, further effort would simply reinforce the negative perception. It’s not surprising therefore that people avoid putting themselves in such circumstances and consequently avoid the kinds of risks that might lead, not just to disappointment, but to growth.
The problem, of course, is thinking that a failed thing, of our own making, is representative of who we are and – crucially - who we might become: that creations define not just internal states but potentialities. We can see this same deception in education, in which students are constantly under the critical eye of evaluation and assessment. What better way to encourage self-criticism and crippling self-consciousness?
In education there’s a widely held assumption that we assess learning. In fact we don’t assess learning at all. What we asses are the products of study, which we take as proof of learning. Assessment, and grades in particular, perpetuate the notion that what defines people is that which is created by them but which is external to them. Whilst this may necessarily be true within the view of others, it also, arguably, has the side effect of turning individuals into observers of their own performance when what education should be trying to foster is unselfconscious critical engagement with the objects of study at the very deepest level.
