In his new podcast, Lightning Bugs, Ben Folds sets aside time between interview segments to answer a question from a listener. On a recent episode, he answered a question from someone who was feeling nervous about putting his work into the world. Here is part of Folds’ response:
I think another thing might be, not listening to too much inappropriate feedback. We have appropriate feedback and inappropriate feedback, and I’ve never said this, so I’m pulling it out of my @&#. But I feel like appropriate feedback is someone that you understand, who cares, who is willing to be honest and kind, and that has considered what they’re saying. That is hard to take, because you know it’s honest, so when they tell you something you’re doing is not up to snuff – is not good enough – you know it’s real and it hurts. But you relax and listen to it and try to take it onboard the best you can. It’s always helpful. That said, there comes a point where you can’t listen anymore. You can’t listen to anyone else’s feedback and you have to stop.
Now, inappropriate feedback is feedback from someone who is disingenuous. They don’t care. They don’t know you. It’s not vetted. I’m not saying you can never take advice from strangers, but if you’re teetering on “am I confident enough to put my stuff out there?” you definitely don’t want to be on Twitter reading what people have to say. You’re fragile and you should be; that’s the way people are. And you need to keep it appropriate and safe. Like, you don’t want someone lying to you, but you want kindness.
Ben Folds, from the Lightning Bugs podcast episode with Sara Bareilles
It struck me as absolutely accurate advice for a creator – having a trusted person or persons to give you appropriate feedback can both make the work better and empower you to feel ready to release it.
But I also thought of it from the other side: as a giver of feedback. Teachers, in particular, are serial feedback-givers, and where teachers fail in giving that feedback, it’s often because they are giving inappropriate feedback, to use Folds’ term. The feedback isn’t inappropriate because it’s inaccurate; it’s inappropriate because it’s not being offered into a relationship built on trust.
We cannot always build that relationship with every one of our students. But unless we try, our best feedback will not be received, because it will still be inappropriate, as viewed by the students.
I know I haven’t always been successful at giving appropriate feedback; sometimes I haven’t been able to build a trusting relationship with a student, sometimes I’ve misread a situation and pushed too hard or not hard enough, eroding the trust I had built. Keeping this mindset of trust-first, feedback-second will help me be more successful more of the time.