Perfectionism is the mind killer.

In my advanced English 10 classes, I often find myself angrily railing against my students’ deep-seated need to be perfect. I am on the record as lovingly shouting at them, “You need to kill your perfectionism before it kills you.” A little violent, a little extreme, I know. But it’s frankly true. I have watched students open their writing and immediately fixate on and lambaste themselves for what they did “wrong” without celebrating any of what they did “right.” As their teacher who loves and roots for them, it’s heartbreaking, infuriating, and deeply annoying to watch.

I realize that I need to take my own advice.

I look back on my first 6 weeks of school with nostalgia; a perfect combination of joy and pain. I went into the year renewed and excited. I had so many plans to revolutionize my own teaching. I had gathered my students’ feedback and planned to deftly utilize it to keep our ship on course. I regularly fell asleep excited for each new day.

Unfortunately, there are myriad clichés about the best laid plans of mice and men, and every single one of them applies to my first semester.

From November 1st to December 23rd, I missed 12 days of school due to an out-of-state family medical emergency. That time was not only terrifying and stressful from a personal perspective (though everyone is healing well and doing fine now), but it was also gut-wrenching from a professional perspective. Not only was I drowning in sub plans and all of the work that goes into taking time off from teaching, but I was also legitimately heartbroken to be leaving my students.

Two days before I found out about my family emergency, I had preached to my nervous students that I knew the essay we were writing felt daunting, but they could feel secure in knowing that I would be working alongside them as a partner through the entire process. I told them we would all get through it together — that it was a team effort.

So as I informed them of the emergency just a few days later, I was unsuccessfully holding back tears. I wanted to keep my promise to them. I cared about them, and I wanted to be the revolutionary teacher I thought they deserved.

Just after my return, when it came time to gather their third round of feedback about the engagement, equity, and rigor of the semester, I was terrified. To say that I was in a headspace to receive teenage opinions at this moment in time would be beyond inaccurate. I knew, however, that taking their input was as important as a doctor recording a patient’s vital signs, so I leaned into my miniature panic attack and posted the survey.

The dread of reading their words was overwhelming. Still, I scrolled through the responses as they oozed in, skimming their lines with the same braced avoidance as a hand brushing over a hot stove.

I skimmed for a few minutes more while their fingers tapped away on the keys. At first, nothing was too barbed. They had some fair criticisms: the pacing of the semester was wonky; the substitutes were inconsistent with them while I was gone; the final unit of study felt disconnected from the first two. There were also some compliments. I remained tense, though, knowing there was a possibility that the angriest writers would take the longest to respond.

I was right — and the worst thing was that the angriest responders made good points. They felt like the conferencing system I used never quite led them to the skills they needed to improve on according to the rubric. They felt betrayed by the grades they received when they were trying something new and difficult. Because of my absence, they didn’t get as much access to me, their partner, as they needed. They wished we had done so many things differently. And so did I.

For a month after that survey, I focused on how to take their feedback and implement it in a way that would feel like their concerns were heard and addressed in the second semester. I developed a second round of essay revisions focused on more direct feedback delivered in one-on-one conferences. I built new unit calendars, pushed myself to sign up for more professional development opportunities, and basically worked even harder to be that excellent, revolutionary teacher that my students deserve.

It wasn’t until recently, after processing the survey data and the experiences with my GMWP research partners, that it finally dawned on me: I wasn’t listening to my own somewhat violent advice.

I had skimmed past a multitude of positive comments to seek out the ones that confirmed my worst fears. I had opened my work only to lament about what I’d done wrong without celebrating what I’d done right.

My skimming had zoomed right past such lovely comments as, “I have really enjoyed the writing projects that we have been doing which surprises me because I’m not used to enjoying writing as much as other things,” and “I always feel heard by Ms. Swanhorst. If I’m absent or miss a project she always gives me time to finish it. I never feel rushed or like I’m doing a bad job. She understands if something is going on in my life that may affect schoolwork,” and “I have really really enjoyed this semester and think the curriculum has definitely challenged me in ways I have not been challenged in the past. It was hard for me at first to see [that] I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, but it was much more rewarding getting a better score the second time around after working hard on corrections [for my essay].”

It isn’t that the positive feedback washes away the validity of the criticism, but rather it is that both are true, and both are equally valuable. In order to survive, I must hold space for both.

There is value in my work as an educator, regardless of the fact that I am not perfect. It’s apparent not just in the positive feedback, but in the fact that my students felt comfortable enough to be honest with me. They were given a platform to share their thinking, their needs, their feelings, and they used it. That really demonstrates something significant in a time where teenagers are often tempted to be apathetic.

I’ll never be perfect, but I will always work hard to give my students what they deserve. I will not do everything right, but I will get a lot of things right, and I will continue on my quest to do the right thing by my students and kill my perfectionism before it kills me.