Perfection, round 2

I watched this awesome TED talk by Reshma Saujani on teaching our girls to be brave, not perfect and it reminded me of an incident I recently experienced with Bella that speaks to the very heart of this issue.

Bella has really stepped up her athletic game this year, making that very brave leap into competitive sports with club soccer.  But of course, that wasn't enough on her plate (which already has piano and cello as extra-curriculars).  She decided she'd throw school soccer on top of all this mix.  This equates to 3x week 1.5 hour club practices along with 5x week 1.5 hour practices for school.  By the second full week of school, shit was hitting the fan.  We had several nights in a row where Bella was up late to finish homework, tears and anxiety level sky high.  I had to do a lot of talking Bella off the cliff of wanting to quit EVERYTHING.

By the third week, she was doing better and had established a battle rhythm where she utilized some study hall time during school to address a majority of the homework.

We happened to be sitting down watching tv together one of these evenings, with Bella working homework in conjunction to tv watching.  She asked me for help on a few Algebra problems.  I quickly realized she kept giving me a separate sheet to help her on from the sheet she was recording her homework answers on.  I asked her what she was doing.  "I'm keeping the paper clean".

Turns out Bella spends a lot of time recopying her work because she likes the product she turns in to be flawless, perfect.  As in, 4 hours later and no sleep kind of perfect...   SIGH.

We had a lengthy discussion about how learning is a journey and its not the answer that matters as much as the things you discover along the way that are important.  By showing your full work, you illustrate both to yourself and to your teacher you comprehend the actual process, not just getting an answer.   If you have an error in something you have fully detailed out, people helping you can quickly see and course correct before a little problem becomes a big problem.

In conjunction with these talks, I'm seriously considering rationing paper and getting rid of erasers in this house.

:o)