Praneetha Goluguri shares about how she is learning from her mistakes.
The smell of vinegar and baking soda still reminds me of my fifth grade science class. My favorite part of class wasn’t the experiments themselves, but the mystery of each one. What happens if I pour this here, or mix that here?
Science felt like freedom. There was no wrong answer, only discoveries waiting to happen. At least, that’s what I thought. Until I got my grades back. “Eighty percent?” my teacher had circled at the top of my paper. Eighty again. And again. Each score chipped away at my excitement. Instead of rereading my mistakes, I’d stare at that number, my stomach tightening. When I showed my parents, they didn’t see curiosity and effort.
They saw imperfection. “How could you make such a mistake?” my mom scolded. I didn’t have an answer. I just knew the experiments that once made me feel like a scientist now made me feel small. So, I stopped asking questions. I stopped experimenting. My reports became shorter, my curiosity dimmer. I wrote what I thought the teachers wanted to hear, not what I wanted to explore. The number rose, but my love for science fell. It wasn’t until a few years later, in my middle school, that things changed.
During a lab on chemical reactions, I grabbed the hydrogen peroxide bottle when I meant to get distilled water. The result was an immediate, foaming eruption that spilled over my tray. My lab partner jumped back, and the whole class laughed.