Practice 3

Chase learning, not perfection

Overview

By the time educators become education leaders, they have (often) been teachers and assistant principals who excelled in their roles. This is why they are promoted: they have a track record of “getting things right.” They are used to being recognized and rewarded for their success and ostensibly are expected by their supervisors and the communities they serve to “get results.” This common biography of many leaders is often accompanied by an allergy to mistakes. Instead, they have a strong predisposition toward planning, and a “git er done” work ethic that prioritizes productivity and efficiency over the discomfort of uncertainty.

Ironically this profile adds up to immunity to learning. Education influencer Todd Whitaker says, “When the principal sneezes, the whole school catches a cold,” so when leaders habituate always perfect performance, the school itself adopts an immunity to learning which trickles down to students. The result is what middle school principal Cynthia Beers described as “studenting:” when students merely go through the motions of what we’ve tacitly agreed are the actions that look like learning. Studenting is going to class, turning in assignments, getting grades, checking off boxes. But studenting can be done without thinking, reflection, or change.

Chasing perfection prevents meaningful learning because it tries to conceal or skip over the part of learning where we are novices; where we aren’t sure, so we do it wrong, or have imperfect understanding on our way to mastery. This is especially damaging because of how the nature of what is to be learned is changing. For a future where technology enables unlimited access to content – and content generation – the ability to recall content is not a valued. The skills of making-meaning, original thinking, interpretation, and the ability to influence others’ thinking are increasingly the skills most valued in the future workforce marketplace according to the World Economic Forum.

One of the most common places in school life to see the adverse impact of chasing perfection over learning is in the Plan-Do-Study-Act process, which appeals to chronic do-ers because it feels actionable. For perfectionists, however, PDSA can lure one into unproductively long periods of planning and cautious low-stakes doing.

What is needed to effectively “Study” and then “Act” – which is where learning happens – are the skills of self-compassion, forgiveness and the expectation that learning is inherently about doing things for the first time. Indeed, if leaders are to cast a vision and rally their people toward something that is meaningfully different from where they are today, it will by definition involve doing things for the first time. It will require the leader and everyone in the organization to chase learning, not perfection.

Quick Start Actions

Make Adult Learning Visible.

Too often adults or leaders create the illusion of effortlessness and peak mastery in their public performance. Identifying an area of practice and transparently sharing your goal, evidence of your attempts that don’t quite hit the mark, and your progress toward the goal is a powerful exemplar of willingness to learn and illuminate the value of imperfection.

Feature Drafts and Final Products of Student Work.

Routinize showcasing student work in progress, not merely finished “masterpieces.” Displaying work with emphasis on documenting the developmental stages where the learning happens. Invite students to reflect on the journey getting from one draft to the other, rather than only on the final product.

Celebrate and Name the Difference between Learning and Getting Good Grades.

Create vehicles for students to creatively showcase what they learned even if they did not check all of the studenting boxes. This could be a podcast, “What I Learned Anyway..” or a once/week segment on morning announcements or a TikTok account where students with average or below average grades can share reflections on what they learned about themselves, about a subject, or about the world that demonstrates skills such as World Economic Forum skills of original thinking, critical analysis, resilience and influencing others.