Left Turn on Red
I was having trouble with my driving this year. For twice, I almost turned left to merge to two-way streets while the traffic signal was still red. Although I realized it right away, it was still very unsafe. The first time it happened, I thought I was just too sleepy to pay attention and it is my fatigue causing it. The second time it happened, I was not that sleepy and tired, but I still began to turn left for 1 second and then pulled to a quick stop. I started to get worried that I may not be able to prevent a third and fourth time in the future. That was when I realized that it was not an accidental mistake. This could be a mistake in my mind. Moreover, I learned driving from my husband. He made the same mistake one night a year ago when we were turning left onto the South Main Street after watching a movie at the Cinebowl. Luckily it was very late and there was no car on the road. It does not sound that unsafe because even if we ignored the signals and behaved as if it was a crossing without any signals, we have checked the feasibility of making a left turn by evaluating the traffic on the other direction. But what if it was turning to a highway with high-speed cars? Afterall, if we made the left turn, it was a hard break of rules. So I am treating it seriously. Obviously, we were not getting it right on how to make a judgment of start or stop at a road crossing. Having the same problem to occur again and again, I started to reflect detailedly on the procedures I follow to make a decision at a crossing. Obviously, I was not distinguishing the judgment to be made at a crossing with traffic lights from that at a crossing without any traffic lights. I was also not associating the safety consequences with the missing of this distinction. I re-wired my mind to remove the steps of evaluating whether a left turn is feasible and to just follow the traffic signals if there is any. Hopefully, the same error will not show up again (with crossed fingers). This is just a mistake of me and my teacher/husband. I hope it does not contribute to the stereotype of Asian drivers. 🙂
I recall in a paper (Alexander 1992) on knowledge and misconceptions, it quotes that “errors are often systematic rather than random”. This is very surprising to me when I first red it. For all my school years, my teachers have been telling me to be more careful so that I can make fewer mistakes in the exams. It might work for some, but I doubt that every mistake can be easily solved by a very abstract direction of being more careful. It sounds like a little problem as you just need to pay a little bit more attention. Yet, “systematic errors” take more efforts. I wonder if I have broken down my mistakes into pieces and rewired them as I did for my driving, I might have better cognitive and learning outcomes (not just exams and grades) in the earlier years of my life.
I know driving is not the topic of this week, but it resonated with me and reminded of the above paper as I red the “hidden mind” article. Both of them emphasize the role of the unconscious mind in controlling our actions and how the mind internalizes invisible impacts from the outside without knowing it. The difference is that the paper is more on knowledge and cognition (dealing with the sources of errors or mistakes due to the lack of information, the lack of association of learning and real-world experience, or a higher level misconception by domain experts), while the “hidden mind” paper is more on social psychology. They both support the same thing, in order to break free from the control of the invisible mind or the existing conception within our mind, we need to dissociate the misconceptions that are harmful to us and to the people around us. I am not saying that the problems we encounter are mistakes or errors. I am not making a judgment of any people. Let me use phrase what we want to fix towards a more inclusive environment as some conception in our mind that we identify to be in conflict with the values you stick to.
If the mind is so tricky, how to identify what conception we want to fix in the mind? Embrace the diversity of information and perspectives with people having different backgrounds. And more importantly, embrace any discomfort and difficulty to facilitate a better environment. I really like the idea of embracing discomfort and difficulty. It is human nature to avoid discomfort whether it is an inclusive issue or a personal issue. The antidote is always to be brave to encounter it and grow in the experiences.
One last thing, I do not have enough confidence in the revised ground rules in a brave space. Other than students learning social justice, who really need to experience the uncomfortable moments to learn it well, I wonder if it is still feasible in more general discussions. It requires quite good control skill from the facilitator.
Oct 16, 2017 @ 1:59 PM
Your driving analogy I think is good, Zachary Gould used a similar example in his post (https://cyclocal.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/the-racist-highway/). And it is a good example of how learned behaviors, sometimes learned without knowing why or if they are right, can be hard to change.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 5:16 PM
Hi Bethany, Thank you for the comment. I thought we were the ones that control the mind, be sometimes it is really the mind controlling us. Thank you also for recommending Zach’s metaphor. He has used a good metaphor of drivers and bicyclers.
Oct 17, 2017 @ 2:19 PM
You bring up a good point Zhulin. Making something that may be considered unconscious into consciousness is always the first step. Once that is done, one has to be very intentional in their thinking and behavior.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 5:19 PM
Thank you, Jyotsana. I am amateur in psychology. It is always inspiring to see how to psychology to understand and explain people’s behavior.
Oct 17, 2017 @ 3:32 PM
I appreciate the concern you raise about needing confidence to cultivate “brave spaces” in the classroom. Your caution is completely understandable. One of the premises of this kind of work is that the topic and the potential for conflict around it make people uncomfortable — including facilitators. So, I think it’s good that you recognize that discomfort, and I hope you’ll not let that deter you from thinking about ways to create brave spaces in your own classes.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 5:26 PM
Hi Dr. Nelson. While reading my classmate’s posts and their comments, I think some of us are really expressing a lack of skill set to have some level of control over these difficult conversations. People usually procrastinate when they feel difficulty or feel less prepared. Thanks for the reminder of this perspective. Procrastination to do something really penetrates every aspect.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 3:30 PM
Zhulin,
This is great. Like Bethany mentioned I also used driving as a metaphor- being in a bike versus in a car. Your post got me thinking though that there are some benefits to bike riding even in a word built for cars. Some counties allow bikes to treat stop signs like yields and stop lights like stop signs. There is a certain mobility that bikes have to go ‘off the beaten path’ or to turn left on red when no one is coming. And sometimes they must – bikers representing minorities in society – just to get an edge up. Minority populations certainly aren’t going to improve their condition by waiting at the red lights and playing by all the rules.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 3:53 PM
I am also concerned by the responsibility of navigating such discussions. Despite the good guidelines, a small error on the part of the instructor could cause a significant problem in the classroom. I am kind of glad that most of my work is objective / computational work without much uncomfortable dialogue. Though to be honest, I do model infectious diseases, and talking about some of them (e.g. HIV) can be uncomfortable…
Oct 18, 2017 @ 5:39 PM
Hi Alex, I am currently on computational work as well. It does feel easier. For the more difficult topics, I agree that we need more practical guidelines and practice of control, leadership, communication, and maybe some counseling skills as well. At the same time, I believe it also helps that we as the educator has some level of flexibility and maybe more confidence by setting a very inclusive culture of not taking things personally. Even if we said something wrong/improper, we can make reflections, corrections, and explanations. Sometimes being authentic and trusting people might sound abstract, but people react much more inclusively to authenticity and trust. I once said something really wrong in a group activity. It sounded very wrong although it was just a language translation problem. But it was not taken badly at the end by the other. That gave me some relief to not to be too sensitive and vulnerable. Maybe being too sensitive could hurt people more, while being natural, authentic, open, relax, and flexible will change the culture in a soft way.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 3:58 PM
I’m curious to know if you driven much before moving to the United States?
You bring up this point about the stereotype of Asian drivers. Someone pointed out to me a number of years ago that this stereotype has a funny twist to it. If one of us thinks we are a better driver than someone from country _______ as an fundamental quality of the race…. it makes the assumption that the experience level is the same for both drivers — which is rarely the case. Drivers in the US on the whole obtain many more hours of driving practice than people in other countries for each year they’ve had a license. It’s just as a matter of how our society / culture is built. Americans drive everywhere. So what we take for granted after a certain age may still be a very new skill to members of other cultures.
Oct 18, 2017 @ 5:45 PM
Hi Brandon, I did not have any driving experience before I came to US because I only use public transportation or a bike. It is really dependent on how the society is built. Just like I heard a girl asking in class “why does anybody live in concrete built homes”? But in my country, actually, we do not use the wood as building structures as in the US. We use concrete brick and concrete more often. I am very open to the differences. Actually, I enjoy all the inspirations from these differences.