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The Story Collider

Incompetence: Stories about lacking skills

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Performing Arts, Arts, Science

4.4818 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s important to remember that incompetence is not a permanent state but often a stepping stone on the path to mastery. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share their experiences of navigating moments when they felt completely out of their depth. Part 1: As a student, Emily Pitts was never a fan of science, but now, as a middle school teacher, she’s not feeling confident in her skills to teach the subject. Part 2: Despite his deep desire to study science, Andrew Barnes is constantly told he can’t. Emily Pitts loves telling stories of all shapes and sizes. From 99 seconds to a one-hour Fringe shows. When she's not jotting down notes for stories, she's working on a manuscript about trees, co-producing comedy shows in Iceland, or wandering off in search of other exciting things to do. Recently, she started co-producing and hosting a powerpoint edu-tainment show in Seattle called ‘My Comedian Teacher’. In her spare time, she teaches middle school. It's never too late to follow your dreams, and at 30, Andrew Barnes is doing just that. Back in school to get his degree in biology, Andrew plans to work in Veterinary Medicine or ecological restoration, or both. That story is still being written. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:20.6

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0:23.1

That's Shopify.com.com slash special offer.

0:28.3

A science story, huh?

0:31.5

Is NYU scientist the...

0:33.3

I felt...

0:34.1

I was huge, but I was so...

0:35.4

And I just thought, well...

0:36.3

It was that golden moment.

0:39.5

Because science was on my side.

0:45.7

Hey, everyone.

0:51.3

Welcome to The Story Clutter, where true personal stories about science help us to discover how weird and wonderful it is to exist in this world and be a human. I'm your host, Misha Gaieski, and today's episode is all about incompetence. Something that everyone has had to grapple with at some time or another, because we can't all be perfect at everything on the first try.

1:11.7

And if you take nothing else from this episode, at least remember that incompetence is not a

1:17.7

permanent state, but rather a stepping stone on the path to mastery.

1:22.7

Or at least that's probably what our first storyteller tries to remember every time she has to

1:26.5

teach a science class.

...

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