[Philosophy Friday] “I Think I Can” vs. “I Know I Can”

This is actually a pretty good book!

I recently read a book called slide:ology that talks about improving slide-based presentations, and the book has given me a lot of food for thought. But one of the minor points that’s really stuck with me comes from a section where the author explains that it’s easy to create your own illustrations for slides, but that people rarely do it because they believe they can’t. The author mentions is that if you ask a group of children, “Who in this room can draw?”, you’ll see almost every hand in the room go up. But if you ask a group of college graduates, “Who in this room can draw?”, you’ll see very few hands go up.

When I’ve gone into classrooms and worked with aspiring young authors, I’ve noticed this as well. Kids believe they can do almost anything, and regardless of the results, they’re willing to try. Adults, on the other hand, only believe they can do the things they know how to do, and they’re often reluctant to try new things without someone there to guide them. What causes this disconnect? Is it simply that children don’t have the wisdom to know that they can’t do something well… or that adults are too concerned with quality to try something that they know they’ll do poorly?

I’m probably the wrong person to answer this question, because I love learning new things, and I’m rarely afraid of failure. But in that spirit, I’m going to make an attempt to do so. Bear with me.

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