Fear and Failure

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 9:13 PM
Subject: Fear and Failure

[This message is sent to all my students.]

I discovered in one of my classes this week that virtually NONE of the students in the class had read my course description, which is at http://urielw.com/fac/. I had told them to read it three weeks earlier.

Why hadn't the students read it? All of them believed it was "very difficult" or impossible to access foreign websites from the FAC computer centre. I found this hard to believe, but they insisted that "most of the time," when they attempt to access foreign websites, they get an error message. (Three of the students are exceptions, since they share a computer in their dorm and don't depend on the computer centre.)

Was there not a member of the FAC staff working at the FAC computer centre? I asked them.

Yes, they answered.

Had anyone inquired why they could not access foreign websites?

No. No one had inquired.

Were these students baby-faced freshmen fresh from remote countryside villages, new to FAC and university life, intimidated by the novelty of living in the big city, far from home?

By no means. The students in that class are in their SIXTH year of university study. They already have Bachelor's degrees and are now in the second and final year of their second degrees, in the Foreign Affairs department.

I asked one of the students to accompany me to the FAC computer centre after class. I wanted to inquire into this myself.

We found the FAC staffer working at the computer centre, and I asked the student to ask her about the issue in Chinese.

The staffer listened to the student's question and promptly responded: "No, you can access foreign websites."

There was a short pause, and the student turned to me, wondering what else I wanted.

I was puzzled. Did the student not understand that the staffer's information was a DIRECT CONTRADICTION of what everyone in the class had told me minutes earlier?

"Tell her you cannot access foreign websites," I told the student.

The student conveyed this in Chinese, and again the staffer answered at once, firmly, indicating access was perfectly possible.

The student turned back to me with an embarrassed smile.

"Is this information not the exact opposite of what the class just told me?!" I asked the student.

The student told me timidly that *sometimes* she cannot access foreign sites. But the staffer insisted firmly that there is no problem accessing such sites. The student looked at me helplessly, obviously wanting only to escape from the situation.

It was lunchtime. I instructed the student to resolve the issue later and send me DETAILED email that I could forward to all other students explaining HOW to access foreign websites. Here it is:

How to access foreign websites at FAC

Mr.Wittenberg,

Fortunately we solved the problem at last. This noon the teacher in our computer lab made it very clear that there is only one room available where we students can get access to the foreign websites (any website essentially) and the other three rooms don't provide this service. For your convenience in informing our classmates, I checked the room number of that particular room. Its number is 336 (a room sign hanging up can tell them) which is inside the computer center. It is also the one with the oldest computers in our school. If you tell them about this, I reckon they will know where it is....

Best regards....

So everyone can now access the web. But students should reflect on the deeper lessons of this remarkable episode.

Here is an entire class, set to obtain a second degree in under a year, that silently accepted failure. An FAC staffer works in the computer room, but no one asked her for help. These students -- "Foreign Affairs" majors! -- were convinced they could not go beyond the 1% of the WWW that is in China. And judging from the exchange I witnessed, the reason none of them awoke to their error is that when they encounter information that disagrees with their false ideas, their tendency is to burrow into a hole and hide.

This is all the more significant in light of Vice-Premier Qian Qichen's speech at FAC less than two weeks ago, which was particularly directed to students in the Foreign Affairs department. He spoke of the personal qualities and characteristics students must develop in order to effectively represent China on the international stage. Other nations, he noted, often pressure China or make demands that are contrary to China's interests. What students must learn to deal effectively with other nations, he said, is to "stand firm."

In my various classes I do have (and am grateful for) many students who are intellectually alert, alive and curious. To the others, those inclined to languor, I urge you not to flee from different ideas, and not to quit on the first setback. An important benefit of higher education is to encounter and be stimulated by unfamiliar and even contrary ideas.

Might those ideas change you? Yes they might. And that might not be such a bad thing. If you exit with all the same ideas you had on entry, can you believe you have progressed?