Why You Should Get Messy | Adriana Fatato | TEDxBrownSchool
[Applause] all right I'm just gonna do it did you see what I just did I made a mess I went for it and drew outside the lines I didn't worry if my clothes got dirty or what anyone else would think and I didn't do it because it was a part of a homework assignment or to get a grade and you know what it felt great my name is Adriana and I'm a perfectionist and this mess I made today is my way of trying to shake loose of the perfection that imprisons me every night I go home eat dinner do chores and then get to my homework I spend several hours making sure everything is right so my teachers won't take off points and before I head to bed I double check everything again the other night I had to make a poster about flowers in Colombia so here I am sitting around for hours cutting stupid tissue paper into petals of the exact size I needed spacing everything out pasting it all on a poster board writing facts and finally wondering what the heck am I doing with my life I got so frustrated that it's no wonder I went a little crazy with the finger paints today but I have to be honest drawing outside the lines being this messy and especially in front of all of you is not easy my instinct is to clean this all up and paint you a perfect picture but the truth is people learn from mistakes if you do everything right in your life then there's nothing else to say like say I asked you at 2+2 is what are you going to say good for you you were right you were perfect but what if you had said 22 and you were wrong well we could have had a great conversation about decimal places and I could have still finally gotten you to the right answer and we would have learned a lot more mistakes are where we wander off the path and try new things if everything is done right and there are no mistakes how do we keep thinking and creating we can't perfection is a kind of death per means through and through and effect means done so perfect means all done I don't know about you but I'm 13 and I don't want to be all done with my life do you reshma so Johnny gave a great TED talk about how girls are taught to be perfect and boys are taught to be brave she started a coding company to teach girls how to code she said when the boys and girls were both taught about coding the boys would hand in work with mistakes and be proud and the girls would have a blank screen and say they couldn't do it if the teacher pressed undo a couple of times on the document she would see that the girls had made some really good efforts but they didn't get it exactly right so they didn't want to turn anything in in Reshma so Johnny's words she tried she came close but she didn't get it exactly right instead of showing the progress that she made she'd rather show nothing at all this shows how girls are taught to be perfect when they should be taught bravery they should be taught to try and show their progress not try and give up some people even think imperfection makes you heroic if Atticus Finch from tequila Mockingbird were here he'd be all about this splatter painting Atticus believed you should do something even when you know you're going to fail take Tom Robinson's trial from in the book Atticus defended in african-american in 1930s Alabama he knew for a fact he'd lose the trial but tried anyway and he brought the cause for racial equality of baby step forward era comes from the same root as errant both mean deviating from the plans path it is also interesting how the word errant to wander is only one vowel sound away from the word wonder Ayers and Aaron see lead to curiosity that take us on new paths of wonder air is not a roadblock to learning it's our reason for learning so today I urge you to get out there and make a mistake send an email with a typo cut out the wrong size petals for your project on Columbian flowers or put on a dirty old t-shirt pick up some paint and get messy exploring the amazing brave imperfections that makes you you thank you [Applause]