Constructive Criticism

To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction. – Proverbs 12:1

 As a former teacher, I had to convince my students that correction is a necessary part of learning. For the first few assignments, most of the students who hadn't had me previously visibly flinched when they saw all of the red marks I made on their assignments. For some reason, they mistakenly believed that being corrected meant they were stupid.

Correction means nothing of the sort. In fact, the more potential a student had, the more willing I was to provide lots of corrections and guidance.

One of the most important lessons I learned myself, as a student, was to seek out professors who were willing and able to correct me in constructive ways. I hated getting assignments back with a grade but no comments. How was I to improve if I didn’t know what I was doing correctly and what still needed work?

Believe me, making corrections on papers takes a lot of time. Truth be told, I didn't actually make corrections for all of my students after awhile. I did for years, but then I realized I was doing more work on some of their papers than they were.  So I made the decision that if they worked hard on their papers, I would work hard trying to help them improve. If they put no work into it, I was not going to bother with corrections.

Think about it. Someone who takes the time to give us honest and helpful feedback is investing time and effort into us. While any criticism can hurt our feelings, once we realize that constructive criticism can actually help us achieve our goals, we may learn to welcome it.