The essay on ‘Avoid Defensiveness’ talks about how important it is to accept criticism and correction in order to learn more. The author presents the reasons as to why this is important through various illustrations of personal accounts. The essay is clear enough and provides the reader with enough points on the topic. Defensiveness, as the author presents, exists within every individual as people feel the need to back their work or opinions whenever other people try to disregard such opinions or work. The author requested a feedback on paper she had written sometimes back. The author had been very confident about the paper and its feedback. The author was very disappointed to find out that the paper had been marked and regarded as very poor given a large portion of the paper was crossed out as weak by the professor. The author's first reaction was to make an appointment with the lecturer in order to let him know that he had made a huge mistake. After going through the comments of the professor, the author realized the professor’s points were actually correct. The author then dropped her defensiveness and gave herself the chance to learn more.
The author describes another instance where she was faced with a similar situation. She had received a critique on a piece of work of about a hundred pages long. The paper had been initially accepted for publication only to be dropped after the author decided to write back to the criticism. The author had tried to defend herself against the critiques. The reviews were not pleased by the author’s reply to the changes made in the paper. There was no point writing such a reply as the author later realized. Anyway, at least the reply had served a purpose of psychological catharsis for the author.
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The author, in the last parts of the paper gives a general illustration of defensiveness and how it affects many other students. Students as observed by the author profit in various levels depending on the nature of the provided learning environments. While some students seem to learn and benefit a lot, others have very little improvements as they do not get to learn as much. Defensive may be the reason behind the difference in improvement between the two groups of students. While some students are open to corrections and use feedback as a way of learning, other students seem to learn little from feedbacks they receive. Some students start while very far behind but later finish in front of others. Such students are always open to being corrected, more learning and guidance. Students who are adamant in the way they learn do not get to improve much. They believe their work should be seen as great and always expect very positive feedbacks. If they do not get such feedbacks, they simply sit back and refuse to see where they might have gone wrong.
As the author says, defensiveness blocks one from developing and exploiting their potential. A person may try to help himself by being defensive on criticism and rejections, but apart from this, there is really nothing else such a person will gain. Non-defensiveness should not end when an individual becomes a professional as learning is a lifelong experience. Those who allow themselves to be criticized and corrected get to grow and improve in their careers. I totally agree that avoiding defensiveness is a good way of learning and that people especially students should always try to be as open as possible to criticisms and corrections.
