Welcome! Everything Is Fine.

Here are two unrelated facts that recently happened to mash together in my head, thanks to a great conversation with a friend and fellow school librarian: 

This summer, I did a re-watch of the TV series The Good Place. One of the central themes of the series is that humans are capable of growth and change. 

Each year as school ramps up once again, I see lots of folks sharing their One Word or a motto or theme they plan to use as their central focus for improving themselves and their practice for the year. 

The Conversation

One of the things I love about doing a podcast is that I get to geek out with other school librarians. I love talking about education, which I think is one of the most important elements of our society. And I geek out when discussing school librarianship, which I think is one of the most important elements within education. 

I was recently chatting with California school librarian Katie McNamara during Episode 53 of the SLLN Podcast. She mentioned in passing how she has been actively working to avoid letting perfect be the enemy of good – that she wants to get things exactly right before putting them out in the world. This struck a chord with me. 

The Enemy of Good

I have a tendency to do this as well. I sometimes spend inordinate amounts of time trying to make my materials just so before sharing them with students or staff. And I know for a fact that many of my school librarian colleagues do the same. I have lost count of the number of school librarians I’ve asked to share an idea on the SLLN Podcast who have demurred by saying they don’t have anything “good enough” to share with others. 

But as Katie pointed out, we do ourselves and others a major disservice with this attitude. When we spend tons of time making something “perfect”, it’s a drain on our limited time resources. Further, such an attitude also creates a poor model for students & staff, implying that something is not worth doing or sharing unless it’s flawless. 

Room to Grow

As educators, we should be promoting and modelling a growth mindset. That means acknowledging that we have room to grow – which means demonstrating that we are NOT perfect. 

Accepting that we all have room to grow is important. It is not only good for us professionally and personally, but it also allows us to acknowledge reality. 

The thing about growth is that it involves change. And change can be scary. But it can also be exciting. And we can choose how we react. It might take some practice, but embracing and modeling a growth mindset means allowing ourselves to show the world where we are not as strong as we work to reinforce that area. 

Limited Resources

Here’s another piece of reality: We do not have unlimited resources to use when crafting our lessons. We do not have unlimited time in which to tinker and tweak before that class arrives, or that faculty meeting we’re supposed to present at starts. 

It’s okay to be doing our best with what we have. 

And it’s also okay to NOT be doing our best with what we have. Because we all have those days (or, sometimes, weeks). We are human. We have limited amounts of energy, creativity, and concentration. We cannot function at our best at all times. We need “down time” – and unfortunately, sometimes that catches up to us while we’re on the job. 

That does not make us bad people. 

It does not make us bad educators. 

It makes us human. 

Bypassing Shame

I often find myself embarrassed when I make mistakes. I often worry that someone is going to catch an error I’ve made and shout, “J’accuse! You are not a professional!” 

This is, obviously, ridiculous. 

Even if I completely biff it, nobody whose opinion I value is going to write me off as a complete ham-wit. They might offer some constructive feedback, and my friends might tease me some in good fun. 

And I know that if I saw someone else make a mistake, I’m not automatically writing them off as incapable or unprofessional. 

So I’m taking a lesson from The Good Place and making my motto for this year “Pobody’s Nerfect.” 

“Failing” #1: Not Knowing

I have a couple of specific ways I “fail” on a regular basis that I want to claim ownership of. One I’ve mentioned before – I hate when someone asks me a question I feel like I should know the answer to, but I don’t. This one is, theoretically, an easy fix. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I’m not sure; let me do some research and get back to you.” 

And yet, even knowing everything I know about why it’s silly of me to feel like I have to have an answer NOW, I still feel that pressure to perform in the moment. So this is going to be one particular area of improvement for me. 

“Failing” #2: Names

The other main failing I am working on accepting is my trouble with remembering names. I honestly think it’s genetic – my grandfather rarely called me by my correct name his whole life. It’s not that he didn’t know who I was; he just had a mental tic that made recalling a person’s name difficult. I have this, too. 

I have called a long-time teacher the wrong name over the PA system. I have frequently not introduced my wife to people because I have blanked on the name of the person that we’re talking to. Even when I encounter students I’ve had for an entire school year in a relatively small class and they come back the following year to chat, I regularly blank on their names. 

I know them, I know things about them, in the case of students I can tell you exactly where they sat in the room; I just have trouble pulling their names from my memory. And it makes me feel like a terrible human being. 

The ridiculous part is that, when I mentally put myself on the other side of the interaction, I am zero percent offended if someone doesn’t remember my name. 

Embracing Our Humanity

All of this is a reminder to myself that I am not perfect. I am going to fall flat on my face sometimes. And not only is that okay, it’s important to acknowledge it, and to share it. 

I have, over the years, gotten pretty good at laughing at myself. So this year, I’m going to make an effort to take those things I tend to feel worst about and drag them into the light, kicking and screaming. (To clarify the grammatical ambiguity there, I will be doing the dragging as well as joining my shames in their kicking and screaming.) Then I’ll try to accept them, and laugh at myself for having wasted time worrying about them. 

I won’t be able to fix all my flaws, but I can accept them as part of who I am. I can stop wasting time and effort trying to cover up those flaws. I can save the emotional energy of feeling bad about something that is not really worth feeling bad about, and that most people other than me probably don’t care about. 

Rejecting Perfectionism / “What’s in a name?”

All of which is to say: No one is perfect. And there’s no way we can be. So why should we waste valuable time – ours and others’ – in trying to make ourselves look perfect to others? 

So when I see you at a conference, and I don’t remember your name, please know that it has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with some weird wiring in my head. Because that’s what I’m going to try to do. And I’m going to work on not feeling badly about it. 

(But if you want to drop your name when we run into each other, I won’t be offended!) 

Giving Grace

We often practice “giving grace” to others, trying to put ourselves in their shoes to help us empathize and, when necessary, forgive them. 

Pick the top one or two things you generally feel embarrassed or ashamed by, professionally or personally. 

Then do some mental jujitsu – imagine a friend or colleague is the one exhibiting those things that you find personally embarrassing. Then think about how you would (I’m guessing) give them grace without even a thought. 

Why not give yourself that grace? 

Once we accept that we are not perfect, we are free to reclaim the time, energy, and emotion we were pouring into worrying about our flaws. And that lets us grow. 

So, do you want to get better? Admit you’re not perfect. Everybody will benefit.