Teach Secondary 13.5

Colin Foster explains why perfectionists can fall short when it comes to pursuing a successful and sustainable teaching career... W hat kind of person becomes a teacher? ell, it takes all sorts, and I’mnot about to stereotype the entire profession. People enter teaching from all kinds of backgrounds and for all kinds of reasons – and that’s a good thing. It’s a great strength for a school to have a variety of different personalities and experiences among its staff. This gives students opportunities to interact with responsible adults who represent a range of different types, with personality traits and characteristics students will sometimes identify with and sometimes not. ‘Responsible adults’ But having said that, I do think that many teachers display ‘perfectionist’ traits. They will have worked hard at school and university, enjoy studying things, be interested in ‘knowledge for the sake of knowledge’ and like to get things right. They will demonstrate great attention to detail and take deadlines seriously. It’s likely that they’ll also consistently pay their bills on time, respond to emails and generally try to do everything to the highest possible standard. They aspire to be a ‘responsible adult’ worthy of being entrusted with other people’s children. Now, for sure, this won’t describe every teacher every day – but I’d venture that this kind of personality type is somewhat overrepresented in the profession. Positives of perfectionism The traits described above can all be very positive, of course. Indeed, they’re very likely to be part of the reason why the teachers in question have made it into the profession and since succeeded. They were the students who planned ahead, got their essays written and submitted them in good time (and remembered to put their name at the top)! They made revision timetables that they actually followed. They’ve done well, and will, to some extent, attribute the career success they’ve had to being well organised and focused on doing things properly. Moreover, many of these traits are ones we try to encourage in our students. We want them to be well- organised and develop good time management. We want them to think, plan ahead and always do their best – but in doing so, could we be unintentionally fostering a ‘perfectionist’ attitude in them that’s ultimately not in their best long-term interests? Challenges of perfectionism Teaching is not always a friendly vocation for the perfectionist. We all know that teaching is a highly challenging job for many reasons. Young people get only one chance at being in school, and this places a weighty responsibility on the teachers who take care of them. Young people’s lives can be complicated and distressing, and this can be emotionally draining for the teachers who support them. The sheer number of contact hours every week and the relentlessness of administrative tasks, challenging students and difficult situations means that merely surviving as a teacher may be a huge achievement. All of this will be very difficult for someone with a perfectionist way of thinking. They don’t want to just manage, muddle through and make it to the end of Friday; they want to get everything right . They want to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Before they entered teaching, theymay have been used to nailing tasks and acing their own exams. They will have believed that so long as you prepare thoroughly, and master the specified content and skills, you should have nothing to worry about. Everything will go smoothly, if only you put in the effort and follow the rules. But real life – and teaching in particular – isn’t always like this. Even with the best preparation in the world, a lesson can nosedive due to factors completely outside of the teacher’s (or perhaps anyone’s) control. Beyond that, there will always be many other good things that could, or should be getting done than the school will ever have capacity for, or which any one teacher will be able to do. In a school environment, perfectionism therefore almost inevitably leads to stress and unhappiness. “Ina school environment, perfectionismalmost inevitably leads to stress andunhappiness” When good is better THAN PERFECT teachwire.net/secondary 22