Wrong is OK

This week in assembly I was talking about the importance of getting things wrong. John Zogby is a successful pollster in the US. He was completely, utterly wrong about Al Gore in Florida, wrong about John Kerry, wrong about predicting the New Hampshire primary in 2008. Notice I said ‘successful’ pollster, not disgraced pollster. If he wasn’t willing to be wrong, he wouldn’t usually be right. Isaac Newton was totally, fantastically wrong about alchemy, the branch of science he spent most of his career on. He was as wrong as a scientist could be, and yet he is widely regarded as the most successful scientist and mathematician ever. Steve Jobs, who started Apple, was wrong about the Apple 111 computer, wrong about the NEXT computer, wrong about the Newton Operating System. Insanely wrong. But you know the rest...Wrong isn’t usually fatal. In fact, it’s usually how we learn best. In skiing, if you’re not falling down you’re not trying hard enough. In Maths, you should be getting some things wrong because that’s how you improve. So don’t worry about getting things wrong – having a go is more important, as is learning from what you got wrong.