Dear Perfect Teacher,
I'm not her. You may not be either, but I bet we both know her.
In fact, I bet we've both tried to be her at times.
Her desk is neat. Everything is perfectly filed. There isn't a melted Mounds bar stuck to a stack of ungraded essays.
She is fashionable every single day. She never leaves the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe.
Her lipstick is perfect. She does not have food stuck in her teeth.
Her bulletin boards are super cute. She doesn't have a faded, half-stapled, unfurled border.
She turns her grades in on time. She isn't sliding them under the door after hours.
She never raises her voice, so she never has to apologize.
Her lesson plans are creative. They weren't concocted in the shower the morning of delivery.
She is always on time. She doesn't have permanent skid marks in the parking lot.
She returns all work in a timely manner. She never has to claw her way out of the avalanche.
She doesn't allow her daughter to eat gluten or drink sodas filled with red dye. She doesn't stay up past 10:00 on a school night.
She made her bed, had her quiet time, and did an hour of cross fit before school. She did not hit the snooze button four times or apply make up in the parking lot.
She is perfect.
Many years ago, I had a student in my AP class who submitted an essay that was perfect- truly perfect. I could not find a single error. Trust me, I tried. Before returning the paper, I told him I could not find one thing wrong with his essay. He grinned in satisfaction until I followed up with, "Sadly, I also couldn't find anything right with it."
Grammatically speaking, the essay was flawless, but the tight perfection had turned it into a literary rice cake that made it awfully boring to read.
The perfect teacher is the same. Oh, she gets many things right- almost everything, to be exact, but what could a teacher who has never made a mistake, been vulnerable, or failed a test possibly have to teach others?
She would make an exceptional accountant, bookkeeper, or safety inspector, but she's probably not the best teacher, even if she has many folks fooled.
Teachers need to have something to teach, which can only come though learning, and learning can only come from mistakes.
Mistakes create empathy for the struggles of other less-than-perfect people, which is to say every student on the planet.
An added bonus is a willingness to make fun of themselves. In doing so, teachers teach others it's okay to not take life or themselves too seriously. This is the freedom a person needs to truly learn and grow.
All of this to say, maybe perfection is relative. It's also quite possible I'm simply partial to screw ups because I require so much grace.
Either way, would it be too much trouble to ask for a warning if I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe or food in my teeth?
-CDB