You might not know yet, that’s OK

Teachers ask tough questions in class and sometimes you’re going to get them wrong. 

Sometimes the questions are things that they have covered in class but other times the questions aren’t necessarily something that’s easy to find in a textbook or something you even learned.

So why does it feel so embarrassing when you guess the answer wrong?

I think as a society we too often expect for people to have an opinion or knowledge on things they were never taught or told about. 

In classes it feels like you can’t just say ‘I don’t know’ when a teacher calls on you but (unless it was part of a reading you skipped) it should be ok. 

When you allow yourself to admit you don’t know then you can start to learn without any preconcieved ideas in your head that can make learning or accepting something new hard to do. 

Saying I don’t know should be a normal thing in classes, you’re there to learn. Just pay attention to how the teacher answers after you  do and take good notes. 

You’ll know next time. 

It’s not a big deal to be wrong when you’re trying your best. As long as it’s not comically bad, none of your classmates will remember you getting it wrong.  

They were probably too busy taking notes, because odds are they didn’t know either. Most of them will just be happy to remember it by the time it shows up on the test.

Learning doesn’t stop outside of the class and neither should the ability to humble yourself and listen to other people’s opinions. 

It feels like too often people are afraid to be wrong or admit that their opinion could use some reshaping. 

So instead of listening to different points of view they pick an opinion – that they probably formed far too early in the conversation – and choose to die on that hill.  

I’m not saying that sometimes opinions can’t be easy to form.  

If somebody told you about Ted Bundy and said he was a bad guy who killed a bunch of girls, the immediate and correct opinion should be: Ted Bundy is a bad person and those women didn’t deserve to die. It’s not a situation where there is any doubt about whats right or wrong. 

However, most situations deserve to be given a little more thought. Life isn’t made up of black and white situations. Otherwise the opinion pages wouldn’t be half as important. 

Doing your own research is always the best thing to do but the issue is a lot of people don’t bother to. Unfortunately, some people choose to form the only opinion they will have on a matter after listening to one person. 

Unless that one person they heard from is an unbiased news article or a first hand account, they’re just limiting their own knowledge on the subject. Before you form an opinion its important to find and listen to both sides of the argument so you can be well informed when you form your opinion. 

And even after you’ve done your research its okay to change your opinion if new information comes out. Opinions should change over time as you grow, otherwise our favorite past times would still be playing with barbies and hot wheels. 

No matter how informed you think you are, its important to keep an open mind any time you talk to someone. 

You never know what you might learn if you just say I don’t know or I’m not sure. 

It might feel a little embarassing at first but once you get used to it I think you’ll find yourself more knowledgable and well rounded in any conversation. 

Plus you might win an argument or two and who doesn’t like doing that every once in a while.