I teach gifted kids in two elementary schools. A friend of mine sent me a message on Instagram to follow “the gifted perspective.” I could immediately connect to the posts. Especially when she defined perfectionism. “Gifted individuals have a level of self-introspection. Maybe they’re hyper aware of their knowledge, or of their learning, or of their differences between them and others. This can lead to perfectionism.”
My 2nd grade student is usually so excited to learn something new. I went to a workshop a few weeks ago at our arts council and was gifted a bag of supplies and a lesson plan on landscapes. I pulled up a landscape painting onto the smart board and started asking him questions about it.
I’m not sure when things fell apart, but he had a hard time identifying things in the painting that I had assumed he would know, animals, foreground, background, landforms, plow. The more questions I asked, the more shut down he became. Then I asked him to write a few sentences to describe the painting. He froze.
I thought to myself that surely he knew how to write a few sentences. Where was the breakdown? Did I even look at the grade level suggestion for this lesson?
Perspective helps. As I’ve processed this exchange, I’ve realized I was battling against a perfectionism wall. I managed to realize this before he melted into tears. I said, “Relax. This is just for you in your journal. It doesn’t have to be perfect.” We had a little more success with the second painting. And I didn’t ask him to write.
Perfectionism Elfchen
Writing
Margaret Simon, daily elfchen
is hard
when you’re seven
try too hard to please
Teacher
Reflections on the Teche 