Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Perfect

Justin's post yesterday struck a hard chord with me.  Go read it.  Have you been there?

Before SXSWEdu, I was super panicked.  My presentation had to be "perfect."  I had to look "perfect."  How many of us have been there?!

We're there every day in schools.  We have to be perfect for our students, perfect for our colleagues, and perfect for our administrators when they come to observe us.  Students have to be perfect for their teachers, perfect for their friends, perfect for all of their extracurriculars.

Why do we feel like we have to be perfect?  Where does that come from?

Once I stopped beating myself up about perfection, I enjoyed SXSWEdu a lot more.  I've learned to enjoy my teaching a lot more too.  Making mistakes is how we learn.  I make them.  My students make them.  We move on.

I always make sure my students know this is a mistake zone.  We can make mistakes here.  All of us can!  There is no judgement from me, and they must suspend their judgement of those who make mistakes, and suspend their fear of judgement about making their own mistakes.

When we stop stressing ourselves out about perfection and being perfect, a huge stress is lifted.  We enjoy learning, sharing, teaching, hosting--well--life a lot more!

So talk with me about perfection.  How do we foster safe mistakes?  How do we eliminate this culture of stressing over the "perfect"?

2 comments:

  1. This really struck a chord! My students are so indoctrinated into "learning means doing well on the test" that they shrink away from any possible mistakes. I forget that I have to keep reminding them that I want them to make bold mistakes, that their mothers didn't correct them when they said "Me want cookie," but rejoiced at the communication, and I will do likewise! I also like to quote C.S. Lewis, who said something like "If while learning to ice-skate you are determined never to fall down, you won't fall down -- but you also won't learn to skate." And how many of our cooking "mistakes" have turned into interesting new recipes? (The others have turned into memorable anecdotes, like when my husband's pie crust was used as the chicken feed trough for weeks in his youth!)

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  2. Yes! I cannot agree with you more, Anna, on all accounts!! :) True community is built around imperfection, not around perfection! Interesting, truly interesting, conversations, stories, recipes, inventions, etc...come from mistakes, not perfection.

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