msagara | (Reply)

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I'm going to stop lurking for this question, because I also felt (and some days, still feel) that way. For me, it wasn't about anyone else's reaction, but very much about my image of myself. If I said something, if I wrote something, if I answered a question, it was right, either verifiably so or backed up by logic I could explain to other people. Even if they disagreed on my conclusion, they would understand what led me to it. But in order to uphold that concept of myself to myself, I did not take risks. If I didn't know how to pronounce a word, I never said it aloud. If I wasn't sure of the answer to a question, I left it blank. And if I wasn't certain from class discussion and the assignment wording what my teacher was looking for in a report, that report did not get done. Being wrong was more terrible consequence to me than failing a class -- and since I was a straight-A student, (or first in class back in the West Indies under our modified British system) that's saying a lot.