Not Perfection: It's All About Growth
As educators, we often aim for perfection and couple it with high expectations. Although these are amazing goals to set for ourselves, we can become stressed and overwhelmed by the pursuit of such a lofty goal. We can become “May tired in September”. Therefore, we must make the goal about student growth and push ourselves forward to reach this attainable goal. We should and must have high expectations for both our students and ourselves. However, we can’t expect or aim for perfection.
We must realize that when our students show growth we have made the difference we so often seek to make in education. Celebrate your student’s growth with a word of praise, a special celebration, and display the progress as a visual reminder of the progress that has been made for both the students and for yourself. We all know that everyone likes to “toot” their own horn every once in a while.
This is also the perfect time for educators to treat themselves to some teacher “self-care”. You deserve it. Teacher self-care can be something as small as buying your favorite expensive coffee drink to treating yourself to a full day at the spa. Your self-care is whatever gives you that extra added feeling of joy and happiness that you do specifically for yourself.
When students and teachers grow in their abilities, mindsets, and academics a consciousness of accomplishment is created and felt by all. The level and degree of feeling empowered to make a difference will drastically improve and increase. The reality of growth over perfection is a workable game plan for educators that will ensure a high measure of success, achievement, and happiness. The goal is not perfection. The goal is growth.
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
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This post is part of the series, “May-tired Already” dedicated to providing educators practical strategies to re-energize and refresh for the long year ahead. To see all parts of the series, go here.