Reflection: The War Against Perfectionism

You may have noticed that my presence here has been inconsistent. I have been busily producing books for Pressed Rose Classics, I wrote in the Poetry Periodical last week, and I have had basically nothing to say about the new school year, which is… Out of character, to say the least!

Well, my friends, I am on strike against myself. I am at war against my worries. I am picketing my peccadillos. That is to say, I am trying to be better. I have spent basically my entire adult life being a painfully conscientious perfectionist, and over the summer I realized that wasn’t working for me. So, I started this year with a deceptively simple goal in mind: “Calm down, Grace.”

And, since I have my attention on it, I have realized that the problem of perfectionism is terrifyingly ever-present. Not only has it infested every fiber of my being, but I also see it in many of my students. I have had the daily experience of giving a simple assignment and being flooded with very simple questions that frankly don’t matter. What is the assignment’s title? Should I indent? How do you form a cursive K?

Of course, I patiently teach my students all of these things and I don’t mind when they ask me questions. But, they do very much get in the way when I want them to focus on the issue we are discussing in class, such as how Pollyanna is changing her Aunt Polly for the better. And, I recognize these questions for what they are: fear-based. These kids are terrified of making mistakes.

So, I’ve started telling them to get it wrong.

You can make up your own title, or don’t write one. When do we indent? I trust you to remember. Do your best on spelling and cursive—it’s okay if I correct it on your paper later. You can fix it when you get it back.

My findings are consistent: they nearly always know what to write, how to write it, and whether or not to indent. They just want to make sure. And in the cases where they don’t actually know, it’s good for me to see them make the mistake so I can revisit content that needs review with the whole class.

Wouldn’t you know it? Mistakes are useful.

I’m trying to take the same approach with myself this year, and prepare for things less compulsively. As a result, my students’ desks have been the wrong size for the first few weeks of school because I didn’t check them on the first day. Normally I obsessively go down a checklist of first day tasks and fret and sweat until they’re all done, but I figured my 10th year in the classroom I could just do my best. And, I forgot to check the desk height! Ah! Woe and disaster! Two of my students were uncomfortable. A little. For a few days. And now they’re not.

These are mistakes I can live with.