Celebration of Mediocrity

Hi. I’m Shannon, and I’m an overachiever.

The first step is admitting it, right?

I’m addicted to my own success. Not in the sense that I’m arrogant and conceited, but in the sense that I have such a deeply rooted fear of failure that I am obsessed with succeeding. I am well aware of the origins of this “thorn in my flesh,” but that doesn’t seem to curb the crazy. I’m so afraid of failing that for me “failing” has come to mean anything short of perfection. An A-, if you will. I once had a class in college where my professor gave us a printout with everyone’s grades on them (with ID numbers instead of names), and I noticed that while I had a 97.4% someone else had a 97.6% and I was actually really upset. He also accidentally entered in one of my grades wrong, a couple of percentage points lower (still in the A range), and I actually asked him to change it, despite the fact that it would do nothing to my grade. When parents and students send me emails about something they disagree with about my teaching I cry. When I got a B+ in Calculus in college I dropped Math as a major. I’m out of control. Teaching, a profession in which you are constantly evaluated by a solid 200 people every day, does not help.

Except that I think it does.

I have been driven to tears and, at times, downright insanity, a few too many times by “failures” both large and small since I entered my career. I like to say I open to criticism so that I can grow as a professional (and for any administrators reading this, that’s the party line), but in reality I’m crushed by any hint that I’ve somehow fallen short of Teacher of the Year. Part of this is fueled by the large mass of people who have spent my life telling me that I am, in fact, beyond extraordinary. You’d think all that hyperbolic encouragement would be good for me, seeing as I grew up being told I couldn’t do anything right. But the two contradictory messages have sent me into a tailspin in those moments that I am not, in fact, perfect.

But now I’m finding that because of the proliferation of “failures” (let’s be honest—it’s probably not as much as I think it is, but in my head all I do is fail), I’m starting to take them less seriously. I think ever since Angry Mom, I’ve accepted shortcomings. I’ve accepted the fact that sometimes I do something wrong. And not only have I accepted it, but I’ve come to expect it. Not in the “oh, I’m so awful, I’m just assuming I’m going to fail” way, but in the good way—like I know that sometimes I’m going to fall short of perfection, and that’s okay. I will probably not get fired because I sent my drama kids to film something and they were caught being somewhere they should not have been. I’m probably not going to get fired because I pissed off a parent, or because one of my 180 moody adolescents doesn’t like me, or because I can’t seem to get my BTSA homework done on time.

So, much to my surprise, when my assistant principal came this morning to “reprimand” me, I didn’t cry. I didn’t fall into the throes of emotional self-flagellation and bemoan the loss of my administration’s respect and the end of my teaching career. I simply said I was sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. Then I let my kids in, smiled at them, and started class.

Growth, baby.