Why do we believe that mistakes are the best teachers?

Or do we? Do you?

I, personally, don’t believe setting people or animals up is helpful. I find they actually practise their mistakes, and the repetition often creates a very much ingrained behaviour. I especially see this with my English students: They are asked to produce English texts often, and invariably make a lot of mistakes. Sentence structure, in particular, is a hot topic. I find that having them read well-written articles and stories works so much better – exposing them to English which is real English very much speeds their progress up.

Why do we still concentrate on all the mistakes children make? Why not mark the sentences which are perfect, so these will get noticed and cemented? Is there any proof that learning from one’s mistakes is preferable to learning from success?

If you’d rather answer from an animal training perspective, that’s fine. I see the exact same patterns in dog training.