Seriously, it could be a schools problem. There seems to be some schools of thought (ahem) that downgrading a student for being wrong is itself wrong and we mustn't hurt the child's feelings. Well, I admit I didn't like being wrong; indeed, I worked so hard at trying to be right that I became a right pest about it. However, not correcting someone's mistakes is in some ways more cruel than hurting their feelings by correcting them.
Heck, even today I don't like to be wrong — who does? — but if I'm convinced that I've been caught out, I'm likely to say "fair cop, guv," and that often leaves them mystified. For instance, at one of the gripe sessions at ConFrancisco in 1993, where we as a committee had made a very significant series of planning mistakes that led to some monumental queues, one of the first things thrown at us was a statement, "You had horrible lines at Registration!"
Those of us on the head table said something like, "Yep, you're right. We blew it. We're sorry. We hope others see what we did wrong and won't repeat the mistakes."
The persons with the complaint were left without an argument. I think they were ready to tear into us had we been all defensive, but when we admitted how badly we screwed up, there wasn't a whole lot more to say.
The only thing good that came out of that was that we've almost never had a significant queue failure at a Worldcon thereafter, because multiple generations of conrunners were so appalled at the results of the mistakes that they've applied enough resources to the issue to reduce (not eliminate) queuing, sometimes to the extent that people who assume all conventions must have Monster Queues say, "There can't be anyone here; it only took me five minutes to register." By now, twenty years on from ConFrancisco, many of the conrunners who have had it pounded into their heads that Thou Shall Not Have Monster Queues don't even know why that lesson keeps getting shouted at them by the Old Pharts. Unfortunately, that probably means that we're about due for another critical failure when someone gets it into their head that s/he knows better and tries something new, spiffy, and wrong, followed by the convention failing its saving throw for Registration Meltdown.
no subject
Heck, even today I don't like to be wrong — who does? — but if I'm convinced that I've been caught out, I'm likely to say "fair cop, guv," and that often leaves them mystified. For instance, at one of the gripe sessions at ConFrancisco in 1993, where we as a committee had made a very significant series of planning mistakes that led to some monumental queues, one of the first things thrown at us was a statement, "You had horrible lines at Registration!"
Those of us on the head table said something like, "Yep, you're right. We blew it. We're sorry. We hope others see what we did wrong and won't repeat the mistakes."
The persons with the complaint were left without an argument. I think they were ready to tear into us had we been all defensive, but when we admitted how badly we screwed up, there wasn't a whole lot more to say.
The only thing good that came out of that was that we've almost never had a significant queue failure at a Worldcon thereafter, because multiple generations of conrunners were so appalled at the results of the mistakes that they've applied enough resources to the issue to reduce (not eliminate) queuing, sometimes to the extent that people who assume all conventions must have Monster Queues say, "There can't be anyone here; it only took me five minutes to register." By now, twenty years on from ConFrancisco, many of the conrunners who have had it pounded into their heads that Thou Shall Not Have Monster Queues don't even know why that lesson keeps getting shouted at them by the Old Pharts. Unfortunately, that probably means that we're about due for another critical failure when someone gets it into their head that s/he knows better and tries something new, spiffy, and wrong, followed by the convention failing its saving throw for Registration Meltdown.
But I digress, of course.