{"id":720,"date":"2019-10-23T08:10:12","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T06:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learning.bishops.org.za\/bsu2022\/?p=720"},"modified":"2025-05-28T14:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T12:57:18","slug":"perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/2019\/10\/23\/perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Perfect’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a post published in KQED’s Mindshift (August 12, 2015), entitled ‘What do students lose by being perfect? Valuable failure<\/a>‘, <\/em>Holly Korbey investigates the danger of striving for perfection and the fear of failure that ensues.<\/p>\n

The article is reproduced below.<\/p>\n

In the first pages of Being Wrong<\/a><\/em>, Kathryn Schulz writes, \u201cIn our collective imagination, error is associated not just with shame and stupidity but also with ignorance, indolence, psychopathology, and moral degeneracy.\u201d This cultural terror of messing up, combined with modern modes of parenting and schooling obsessed with narrow versions of academic and career \u201csuccess,\u201d are making students more than risk-averse.<\/p>\n

Books like How to Raise an Adult<\/a><\/em> and Teach Your Children Well<\/a><\/em> say kids are coming to college \u201cunderconstructed,\u201d at best unsure of who they are and where they fit, at worst anxious and depressed, because their parents have protected them from the uncomfortable and unacceptable state of being wrong. Focused on getting the grades or winning the game and excused from helping out around the house, these children have internalized the pressure, and it\u2019s morphed into a monster that paralyzes kids in their ability to take risks, screw up, find out the consequences and learn from their mistakes.<\/p>\n

Parent and educator Jessica Lahey, author of the new book The Gift of Failure<\/em><\/a>, wants parents (and teachers) to back off. She said it\u2019s time for adults to do the responsible thing and let the children fail. Trying something and failing, she writes, is how children learn and make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. This applies to unloading the dishwasher as well as the science fair. Becoming autonomous gives children pride in themselves and their abilities, and makes them independent thinkers and doers who can cope with the ups and downs of life.<\/p>\n

But it will be messy, and adults should expect as much. To Lahey\u2019s credit, The Gift of Failure<\/em> defiantly rejects the binary choices of either \u201ctriumphant or bumbling adulthood\u201d as end goals, and sees growing up as a series of peaks and valleys with lots of time to figure things out in between. Instead, she offers practical advice, steeped in the latest research, on how to let kids find their own way as parents and teachers guide them, the key word being guide <\/em>\u2014 not instruct, dictate, or enable. Giving kids autonomy may or may not make them a big \u201csuccess,\u201d but the research supports that it will make kids happier, less anxious and depressed, and more fulfilled to work towards agency in their own lives.<\/p>\n

Lahey taught middle school for more than a dozen years, and said that in that period of time, she watched as kids went from cautious to take risks to too terrified to even make a move \u2014 write a sentence, for example \u2014 without considering what people might think or how it would affect their grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I began to notice was not the fear of an \u2018F\u2019, it was the fear of any mistake,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that students couldn\u2019t get to a final draft, they couldn\u2019t get even their ideas down. From a teacher\u2019s point of view, that\u2019s a nightmare! If they can\u2019t take a risk, then certainly they aren\u2019t raising their hand with an I-wanna-try-this-idea-out kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many educators already know this, but what to do about it? Educators can play a crucial part in helping kids to get comfortable with failure, which Lahey calls \u201cautonomy-supportive teaching\u201d and goes hand-in-hand with \u201cautonomy-supportive parenting.\u201d She says there are ways educators can encourage parents to let go, and here are a few:<\/p>\n

Encourage parents to think of raising a child as a long-haul job<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stop bringing forgotten homework to school, Lahey tells the parents of her students. And stop stressing over how your daughter will do on next week\u2019s quiz: instead, focus on what your daughter can learn if she does it all herself, without nagging and pestering and pressure. If she does indeed fail the quiz, she may be forced to ask herself what went wrong, and what she could do better next time. Parenting is a long-haul job, Lahey says, and parents and teachers need to think more about what\u2019s going to make kids happy in the long term. In the case of the quiz, the short-term goal is getting an \u2018A,\u2019 but the long-term goal of self-sufficiency eclipses that minor \u2018A\u2019 by a long shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so freeing!\u201d she said. \u201cYou can stop worrying about the stupid details of the moment-to-moment junk, and start focusing on the big things. Just think about where your kid was one year ago today. They\u2019re amazing!\u201d Lahey said she\u2019s not sure if adults just forget, or worry that\u2019s not true. She suspects, though, that parents don\u2019t see the amazing growth in kids because they aren\u2019t given the opportunity to show it very often.<\/p>\n

Focus on Process Instead of Product <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lahey confesses this is a tricky balance, especially since schools today are inherently \u2014 almost obsessively \u2014 focused on product (and may inadvertently be contributing to parents\u2019 anxieties over academic success). But there are ways to get around that, she says.<\/p>\n

Adjust expectations (and grades) to make room for real student work. In the book, Lahey asks a kindergarten teacher what her kids can do that their parents don\u2019t think they can. She responds: \u201cEverything!\u201d In autonomy-supportive teaching, work that students plan and orchestrate themselves will look like \u2014 well, like a kid did it. That means no more science projects worthy of their own Nobel. \u201cTeachers need to move their expectations as well. Our lines for where grades should be have creeped up anyway, based on our expectations for what the product should look like. Our expectations have been skewed by the work of the parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lahey knows that teachers love to hear that a parent has decided to make the child more responsible for his own learning: \u201cIf you tell your teacher you\u2019re making the move to more autonomy-supportive parenting, and to please hold your child to consequences without letting the kid off the hook? If you ask the teacher to help you through this \u2014 that this is the only way your child is going to learn? Just knowing when a parent is interested in supporting a student\u2019s voice and ability to speak up for themselves: a teacher will kiss you on the lips for that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Back away from the parent portal<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the biggest pitfalls to autonomy-supportive parenting, Lahey says, are the parent portal websites, with access to up-to-the-minute feedback about scores and grades. Lahey and her husband decided to forgo the parent portal for their older child. They handed the password over to their son, telling him he\u2019d need to let them know if he was in academic trouble. Some of her friends were shocked, \u201cas if we were defaulting on our parental duty,\u201d she writes. \u201cI disagree. Checking in on children\u2019s grades is a type of surveillance, which is one of the forms of control and is often mentioned in the research as an enemy of autonomy and intrinsic motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For parents who decide to forego the parent portal (or only check it occasionally), Lahey recommends sending a note to teachers about the decision, explaining that your student is now responsible for her own communication information.<\/p>\n

Consider the Fear of Failure May Affect More Kids Than You Think<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some educators have called out the rash of overparenting books as only written for a few upper-class parents; some have called The Overstressed American Child \u201ca myth.\u201d Many students are well-acquainted with failure, both their own personal shortcomings as well as the systemic failures of their schools and homes. While Lahey openly admits that The Gift of Failure<\/em> doesn\u2019t apply to everyone, she cautions that it\u2019s not just the 1% who are terrified of their kids failing: \u201cWhat I did find out by talking to teachers, is that it\u2019s far more pervasive than we thought,\u201d Lahey said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a big chunk, a lot of middle class kids are getting the same kind of pressure,\u201d as kids at the top. Many times, she said, the pressure\u2019s even greater if a family doesn\u2019t have the means to pay for college \u2014 especially when it comes to sports and scholarships.<\/p>\n

Fear of failure destroys the love of learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

In chapter 2, Lahey relates the story of one of her students, capable and intelligent Marianna, who has \u201csacrificed her natural curiosity and and love of learning at the altar of achievement, and it\u2019s our fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

We taught her that her potential is tied to her intellect, and her intellect is more important than her character. We taught her to protect her academic and extracurricular perfection at all costs and that it\u2019s better to quit when things get challenging rather than risk marring that perfection.<\/em><\/p>\n

Above all else, we have taught her to fear failure, and that fear has destroyed her love of learning.<\/em><\/p>\n

And this is the real shame: fear of failure taints the waters of learning, keeping kids from taking risks. Making failure normal \u2014 even celebrated \u2014 Lahey contends, may be uncomfortable in the short-term, but in the long haul makes for happier, more confident kids.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a post published in KQED’s Mindshift (August 12, 2015), entitled ‘What do students lose by being perfect? Valuable failure‘, Holly Korbey investigates the danger of striving for perfection and the fear of failure that ensues. The article is reproduced below. In the first pages of Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz writes, \u201cIn our collective imagination, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,48,70,72],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fear","tag-fear-of-failure","tag-parenting","tag-perfect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2752,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bishops.org.za\/bsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}