Perfectionism as the enemy of learning.

coquinarestrepo
Jul 7, 2022
8 min read

“No one is perfect, that’s why pencils have erasers.”

-Author Unknown (but probably a teacher)

What is perfectionism in education?

I have never once found anything close to perfect inside or outside of a classroom. Classrooms are messy places. They are loud, usually filled with strangers who aren’t always friendly with each other, and are full of questions. Questions and mistakes. Bad test results, late projects, all of the things we DON’T like mentioning in report cards.

It’s getting harder to support our students and ourselves to “Learn from your mistakes” when we’re shown perfect versions of schools and learning on TV and movies. Because in our minds, “perfect” and “mistakes” don’t belong together. And it’s extended to our mindset that “mistakes” and “learning” shouldn’t be put together either. This has created our unrealistic ideal in education and created a new classroom complex: perfectionism.

What is perfectionism? Is it the same as “fear of failure”? And how do we address it in the classroom?

What is Perfectionism?

It can seem easy to say what perfectionism is because we’ve all dealt with it at some point, the need to do something perfect or not do it at all. But perfectionism is more complicated than just obsession or avoiding mistakes. It’s connected to how we view ourselves, our peers and our goals.

Perfectionism (n):

A disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable.

2. The tendency to attribute self-worth to rigorous, self-imposed standards.

-definition by psych.com

Perfectionism isn’t just a state of mind, it’s a personality trait. Typical qualities of perfectionism are seen in “Type A” personalities, the idea of the typically competitive and hyper organized person, but it’s common to see different perfectionist traits in different people across the spectrum.

Researchers have been diving into what drives perfectionism and it’s mindset since the 1970’s. Most researchers would say the the perfectionist mindset is divided by positive (healthy) attributes and negative (maladaptive) attributes. These traits inherent to perfectionism present themselves in different ways and impact both teachers and students through how they organize themselves and what standards they set in the classroom.

Perfectionism: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Perfectionists can be self motivated, risk takers and goal oriented. They can objectively accept their failures and use them as learning curves, as well as find enjoyment in other challenging tasks such as group work and long term project management.

Perfectionists can also be unable to handle set backs, unable to accept mistakes as learning experiences and might take criticism as irreproachable. This results-oriented mindset can lead to the inability to objectively evaluate their own process, neglecting the learning aspect of tasks and goals and instead only focusing on a “perfect” image.

The traits associated with perfectionism are complex and can lead to longstanding mindsets, both healthy and unhealthy. Some of these personality traits are healthy and manageable, many are even shared by highly successful entrepreneurs and athletes. This is because perfectionism is multifaceted, it reflects the good and bad tendencies in our goal achievement skills and how we accept challenges. It’s important to recognize what kinds of perfectionist traits are typically seen, and how we use them in and out of the classroom.

Five Positive Traits of Perfectionism:

1. Self motivated

2. Conscientious

3. Detail awareness

4. Achievement oriented

5. High personal standards

Students with the positive aspects of perfectionism as self-driven and react well to challenges and changes. Teachers with these traits also react well to new goals and obstacles with creative thought and take mistakes as learning curves.

These traits show that “perfectionism” isn’t the same as “fear of failure”, it’s actively adapted to being able to plan ahead and reflect on what mistakes you could have made. In this sense, perfectionism is a driving force to push you out of your comfort zone to accomplish your goals.

Even then, we are also all to aware of the negative aspects of perfectionism. And students who are focused on being perfect in the classroom can neglect the positive benefits and only focus on the “ideal” outcome.

Five Negative Traits of Perfectionism:

1. Procrastination

2. Dichotomous (All or nothing) thought process

3. Negatively comparing yourself to other

4. Inflexible towards goal achievement (goal domination)

5. Overly critical of failure.

This is what we would consider toxic perfectionism, a negative mindset that is counter productive to teachers and students. Students who are possessed by the negative aspects of perfectionism tend to react to challenges hesitantly and often avoid making mistakes at all costs. Teachers with this negative mindset also view mistakes as incredibly overwhelming and often direct poor performance standards towards themselves.

These toxic perfectionist traits can lead to high anxiety amongst students and also push some students towards underachievement mindsets due to their fear of failure. Pushing these students out of their comfort zone can be incredibly difficult to motivate them to participate in classroom discussions or competitions. It’s even harder to push for these students to go back and correct their mistakes, which is central to learning!

To be able to overcome the anxiety from perfectionism and take advantage of its benefits, we need to balance them in a healthy mindset. Starting with the central challenge: Being able to accept failure.

Why we need to fail.

“The process of learning is most effective if we incorporate failure: You try something out, if it doesn’t work, you fix it.”

-Mark Schwartz (Standford Professor of Engineering)

Failure in the classroom can present itself in different ways. We usually think failure as a bad test score or incomplete projects. Other people view failure in different ways, some students might view making mistakes on their homework or being able to answer a question when called on in class a failure. Which can lead to viewing the classroom as a stressful environment for our students and counter productive to learning.

In order to address failure we need to know how to create a healthy view of failing and making mistakes. If we can reframe how we make me mistakes, as something to learn from instead feel inadequate by, then we can help our students develop a healthy mindset with handling perfectionism. In order to do that, we’ve set up three sets of recommendations for dealing with toxic perfectionism: for students, teachers and classrooms.

How to address toxic perfectionism with our students:

Organize your supplies and deadlines

Helping students understand their deadlines and upcoming important dates is a great way to keep our students on track and learning how prioritize. Perfectionists tend to hyper focus on a single goal or project and neglect others. Showing students how to do simple skills like keep a calendar and set priorities by upcoming due dates is an easy way to help them re-focus on what they can do in their limited time.

Set up self-checks once a task is complete

Reflection questions that ask students to review how they felt about their work and how much time they spent on a project is a good way for students to break out of a negative thought pattern. When students are able to slow down and break down how they completed a project, it’ll help them understand what mistakes they made and why. It also helps students reframe and learn from their mistakes, making it easier to handle a not-perfect score or performance.

Create positive peer feedback loops

Have students learn how to form small discussion groups where they can talk about their challenges with completing certain tasks and offer support. Hyper focusing on your projects with a dichotomous thought complex is an extremely isolating event, making it harder to reach out for help when you’re struggling. If we can help our students learn how to reach out to each other when they’re struggling with mistakes, it’ll make a long lasting impact on their lives and ability to cope with failure in the future.

How to address toxic perfectionism in ourselves:

Teachers also struggle with perfectionism, that is why we should address within ourselves in small ways in order to help recover from mistakes and failures.

Be grateful for one thing you did today.

Perfectionism can make us hyper focus on our mistakes and create a negative feedback loop where we obsess on them. While we may struggle to find something that makes us happy when we’re in a bad mood, practicing gratefulness is a great way to stop a negative feedback loop. No matter how small something may be, find something you’re happy about or that you did well that day.

Ask yourself what was one thing you couldn’t control?

Many things are out of our control in our classrooms, and we need to remember that we can’t focus only on what we did. If you’re struggling with “if only I could have done better”, stop and name one thing that you can’t control about someone else. It will help alleviate the pressure of having to perfect and also give you room to accept your mistakes as something you couldn’t control as well.

Reflect and ask yourself what you learned?

Just as students must understand that they learn from their own mistakes, we have to accept within ourselves that we’re still learning. After any bad class or day or grading period, find a time to calmly ask yourself what you think you learned from it. You’ll find that you’ll have more tools to use the next time you come across this problem and it will make you a better educator in the long run.

How to address toxic perfectionism in our classrooms:

Finally, the best way to change toxic perfectionism is to address it in the classroom.

Mistakes can be corrected

First, we make sure students know they can always retake tests or quizzes, turn in make up work for missed deadlines and offer opportunities for extra credit. If we give students a limited number of make up assignments (whether it be once a month or a few make ups a semester) we teach them that there are ways

Create a culture of reflection

Checking our mistakes and missed answers can be tedious and sometimes stressful. That’s why making it a classroom habit is a great way to help motivate students to self-reflect on their work. Setting up class time in the morning to correct homework, ten minutes to go over their incorrect test answers and setting up small groups for students to share their bookwork mistakes can give students the self confidence they need to be able to view their mistakes as learning opportunities.

Set up a positive feedback loop in class

The best way to keep students from feeling negatively about failing is to let them express when they are having issues with each other. Reassuring ourselves and our peers that making mistakes is natural and okay will help them learn to seek out help when they need it in the long run. Setting up a time to work through our problems and clear up misunderstandings, that way our students can reinforce the reflection skills and also practice their critical thinking through social interactions with both their teacher and classmates.

Learning how to accept failures and mistakes - The journey of a 100 miles

To be honest, making mistakes and failing is a hard fact of life. It’s something many of us are learning over and over again, which is why it’s important to start addressing it in school in healthy ways. Being a perfectionist may mean that we have high standards for ourselves and want are putting a lot of energy into accomplishing our goals. But sometimes our perfectionism can negatively influence our lives and mindsets, making it harder to recover from life changes.

Learning from failure starts by accepting that failure hurts. We will all make mistakes in our lives and in our classrooms, but making mistakes are the first step to learning how to better. Be open to talking about your failures to your friends, colleagues and even your students to help set a good example of how to learn from our mistakes. When we start discussions about learning from our mistakes and reflecting on what we learned, we’re helping to motivate our students to push through the pain and focus on being persistent in achieving their goals.