Teaching Imperfection

I'm a bit of a self-help book junkie, although I'm pretty picky about which books I buy/ like/ admit to reading. Currently I'm reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (published by Hazelden, naturally). The fact that I'm even mentioning it means that I like it. I love Brown's writing style, which is self-reflective and pretty funny. Brown, a prof at University of Houston, researches shame and uses her own experiences of dealing with shame to help her reader work through issues related to perfectionism. I like it and am finding it really insightful.

One of the things that Brown talks about is how embracing our imperfections becomes a way of becoming more compassionate and courageous. As the title of her book suggests, these are the gifts of imperfection. In some sense, this is what I call a "no-duh" observation. It's so obvious and rings true. Still, my tendency is to try to hide my imperfections, shake them off, make light of them, secretly be ashamed of them or obsess over them. (The last option is my favorite course of action.) What if I did embrace them? What might my life look like? I definitely think I would be much happier, but the thought is somewhat intimidating.

As I've been thinking about imperfections and how to embrace them, I noticed something about how I work with my undergraduate research (UR) students. My university is very excited about UR and does a lot to support it. I've been actively involved in mentoring students, including mentoring them over the summer for intensive projects, and have even published a bit on mentoring UR in my field. The students who sign up for UR, especially the summer programs, tend to be perfectionists. They are honor students who take 18-20 hours a semester, volunteer for countless service projects, travel abroad at the drop of a hat, work part time on campus, get straight "A"s, juggle fire batons, rescue small animals from burning buildings, invent new technologies to save the world, etc. Most of them have never had to rewrite a paper, had a professor challenge their perspectives or had to toss out a thesis on which they've been working. But this is exactly what the UR experience is about. They sign up for extended research projects and rarely do they realize that a bulk of the experience will involve dead ends, reworking, rewriting, rethinking--imperfections.

So, how do I deal with my perfectionist students who are coming face to face with their imperfections? I remind them that no one is perfect and that research is about false starts, second chances and "shitty first-drafts" (to quote Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird). I tell them that no one expects perfection, that the idea is to think about a problem or topic in a new way as a means of furthering the conversation not ending the conversation. I even tell them stories about my own writing mishaps, published mistakes and the like, as well as the stories shared with me by own mentors. "Look at us! We're all imperfect and incomplete! That's part of being humans and scholars!" In other words, when sitting down with a student to talk about the difficulties of research and the reality of imperfection and failure, I show compassion. I show compassion to my students! I'm living and experiencing what Brown discusses, using the gifts of my own imperfection to show kindness toward others and to mentor others. Maybe now that I see this, I can work on channeling some of that kindness toward myself.