This article discusses on the issue of perfectionism in lesson preparation and 7 reasons why we should strive to keep things manageable. Read on to find out more.
“The Perfectionist kills. Especially when you are the one.”
Perfectionism in lesson preparation. Perhaps this is not such a foreign concept for any of us, especially that many of us take professional pride in what we do. The question is: should it be encouraged?
For a start, let me try a different approach in my writing. If you have read any article published earlier on this website, you might have noticed the amount of details I have and probably the number of references I cited.
While I can claim some expertise to the content on which I have written, the perfectionist in me is always looking for potential gaps. Sometimes they are legitimate: a further deep diving into the literatures reveals a whole new set of fresh perspectives which I can use to re-design my content. Other times, they appeared as futile efforts of digging more just to re-validate what I was going to write in the first place.
Thorough. Responsible. Research-informed. These are indeed some of the professional aims that I pursue in the content creation on this website. But I have to confess: exhaustive as an approach, exhaustion can be a consequence too. Of course, a well-written article that can benefit readers and inspire discussion brings much more joy and insulates me against burnout. However, that does not invalidate the possible exhaustion.
Trust me, even as I am writing this, I have found quite a number of books and articles related to this topic and I feel so tempted to stop, slow down and read all those articles first before continuing. Do all this also sound familiar when we come to lesson preparation?
The Perfectionist kills. Especially when you are the one.
Table of Contents
- The experience of the never-ending lesson preparation
- My one story of perfectionism in lesson preparation
- 1. Every lesson can be improved
- 2. This time next year you will have forgotten this lesson
- 3. This time next year your learners will also have forgotten this lesson
- 4. It gets better with experience.
- 5. It does not need to be original
- 6. Your lesson in the larger scheme of things
- 7. You matter more than the lesson.
- Conclusion
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The experience of the never-ending lesson preparation
During my teacher preparatory training, lesson preparation is almost a staple that pre-service teachers must engage with day in day out. That is unsurprising, since pre-service teachers usually do not have much ground experience and have to rely on lesson plans to mentally represent the conceptualisation of their (future) lessons.
Personally, I remembered taking on a very “holistic approach”. While there was somewhat a physical checklist – the lesson plan templates usually provided by the lecturers and tutors, there is also an additional mental one with all the theoretical building blocks I try to synthesise from all the modules I have learned. Yes, I am the perfectionist who wants to have all grounds covered:
- SMART Lesson objectives? Checked.
- Content updated and relevant? Checked.
- Curriculum theory underpinning is sound? Checked.
- In congruence with findings from educational psychology? Checked.
- Design in sync with language sciences? Checked.
- Assessment well-paced, relevant and informative? Checked.
(DISCLAIMER: The actual list is longer and these are just some examples.)
As a teacher in training, this is necessary. That is the stage where we are building up our professional expertise and habits, and this process of educational thinking is important. The more we can automate these processes, the more efficient we can prepare our lessons when we are in actual service.
However, if the perfectionist identity caught up with us, we will then face the dissonance in actual service. There are more duties on our plate as a full-fledged educator, and some of us may be handling a variety of classes with a range of student profiles at any academic year or term. This means that we will have less time for extended ideation or multiple reviews of any one lesson or iterations of the lesson materials.
I have to confess, that I did exhibit those tendencies for an extended period as a beginning teacher. Despite the added responsibilities, I made a strong conviction that I must not settle for less to make the best out of every moment in the classrooms and make every single lesson a peak performance. Lesson crafted with materials ready? It can still be changed if I chanced upon new articles which inspire new thoughts and means, if I happened to check in with mentors and colleagues on alternative approaches. Yet, over the same extended period, I do come to realise that perfectionism in lesson preparation is just not the best recipe.
My one story of perfectionism in lesson preparation
This was a lesson which I taught as a beginning teacher in a class of 13-year-olds, where the target language is Mandarin (sometime in 2008). The lesson was meant to be an introduction of flash fiction to the class within 50 minutes, with lesson objectives mainly as the articulation of details on the common characteristics of flash fiction.
With these in mind, my immediate focus then was to look for the best exemplars – a few examples that illuminate the features of flash fiction in bombastic ways, which carried content with deep meaning so that discussions of controversial topics can be facilitated, and which were age- and level- appropriate.
I did extensive readings of many different stories, shortlisted at least 10 – 12 of them and even accumulated a repository of backups. Based on the structure of the top stories I had chosen, I map out the possible sequences I could facilitate the learning and subsequently decided to zoom in on a few. I prepared several physical materials (e.g. prompts, A3-sized note-of-discussion templates) to facilitate mind-mapping and discussions. It seems that all the stars were aligned for a great lesson. Or so I thought.
The night before the lesson, I happened to chance upon a very inspiring short story when I was preparing for another lesson. It sort of triumphed all the earlier ones (at least based on the perfectionist criteria I have set), and I could hardly stand the thought of just compromising with the ones I have already prepared. Guess what the perfectionist did?
Unsurprisingly, I made a complete overhaul of all the materials that night and dashed in early in the morning to re-print all the materials that were required. When I went into class, I was a confident champion earmarked for success at the apex.
The lesson went moderately well – so moderate that I could hardly recall the details (confident though that it was not an epic failure, as in this case). I do vaguely recall that the learners were engaged in some form of flash fiction creative writing the subsequent lessons, with some creating fairly interesting stories that fit the characteristics. Notwithstanding that, I definitely did not remember it to be an indelibly awesome lesson – I have other lessons that I can share on that (for another time). Perfectionism, and the burdens it bestowed upon me in this one case, did not result in a level of success it targeted.
1. Every lesson can be improved
If we are truly perfectionist, then we will realise there is no end to perfectionism. In every enacted lesson, the realities of the classrooms are always beyond our imagination. Our learners are hardly actors and actresses performing to our script – they are dynamic humans who can adapt and disrupt. As such, we usually have to modify our approach, and perhaps deliver or facilitate in a way which deviates far from our initial plan. Moreover, if our intervention as an educator is to facilitate learning for others, should our learners not be the main directors of the learning process?
We are also dynamic learners ourselves. In the process and aftermath of lesson enactment, we may also derive alternative manifestations of the lesson that we have delivered earlier. In my experience conducting lesson observations and opening up my own classrooms, despite the best effort to deliver a flawless learning experience, my colleagues and I are always able to identify areas for improvement. It could be the use of a different text or speech or communicative context as vehicle to achieve the learning objectives, or other means to lower the affective filter and enable the learners to be more receptive of the language content, or more strategic assessment means to evaluate the targeted language skills.
Let’s not forget that even geniuses have blind spots. The tricky thing about blind spots is that they only become salient in hindsight. I dare not claim expertise to the extent of a genius, and I truly believe my blind spots can be many. Yet, I have to go into my classrooms as scheduled without the total confidence that all blind spots have been covered. In that sense, I will have to bear in mind that my lesson will continue to have space for improvement even with the best efforts to perfect it.
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2. This time next year you will have forgotten this lesson
You might want to test yourself: do you still recall incidents that happen on the same day you are reading this article now, last year? I do have some vague impression of what I did in 2021 on this day (20 Dec). I am confident I did not travel overseas because of the pandemic restrictions. I might have indulged in some of the local tours with my family, but I have absolutely little recollection of the details.
No doubt, there will be specific things that we remember vividly, such as the day your partner and you fell in love or the moments your children enter this universe. However, if we have been teaching for a certain period of time, it can be hardly believable if we can actually call up details of every lesson we have taught. Sometimes, memories of any one lesson would already have been inundated with another week of lessons.
Furthermore, regardless of how reflective we are, I am pretty confident that most of us are forward-looking for practical reasons (e.g. the next lesson is always coming up). Even the most perfectionist of us is only more interested in one thing: the perfection of the next lesson. This may sound like circular reasoning, but does that not sound legitimate? The perfectionist can and may engage in a revolving cycle of perfecting every single lesson which is really unnecessary.
3. This time next year your learners will also have forgotten this lesson
Or worse, tomorrow. How many times have we asked questions like “Why can’t my students remember what I have taught” or “I thought I have covered this in our last lesson”? Like us, our learners will probably not form a lucid memory of the lesson once it has passed.
Now, whether or not our learners retain the language knowledge and skills learned, as intended by the lesson, is a function of a wide range of factors. The lesson you have enacted can be one of them but will probably not be the only one. In that sense, your professional work will presumably lie beyond just lesson preparation and lesson enactment and includes other facets such as relationship building and parent engagement.
Of course, our main motivation as language educators is not about our learners remembering the details of our lessons – it is about whether our learners acquire the targeted language learning objectives. The crux of this point is also not to encourage you to stop thinking about improving learning with your learners in mind through your lessons. The case is against perfection to all details that keeps you entangled in a never-ending process of lesson preparation.
4. It gets better with experience.
Lesson preparation is an essential component of a professional educator’s work. However, as with any craft and skill, expertise is gained with deliberate practice and purposeful reflection. This means that experience matters.
Not all experiences are made equal. Those from which we gain eureka moments and consider plans for our next experience will then enable us to from expertise over time. All the lesson preparation experiences during pre-service training were meant to be such experiences, albeit somewhat crafted ones. They are usually thoughtfully structured by the institution that provided the training and the processes are guided by experienced mentors – thus involving reflection and action plans.
In our personal practice as in-service practitioners, we are our own mentors in this sense. Perhaps there is less luxury of thorough reflection or meticulous follow-up action plans, though we should still pursue a portion of that. However, the primary principle is that we let experiences lead the way while maintaining good learning practices to gain expertise through them, and not wrestle with perfectionism whilst preparing for every lesson.
5. It does not need to be original
Lesson preparation can be enjoyable, since it is also a process of creativity. Sometimes, if not often, we do get into the state of psychological flow during lesson preparation. There can be immense satisfaction derived from the curation of a wholesome lesson that is potentially powerful for our learners – especially when that is the produce from our personal creative juices.
Notwithstanding such, is originality the most important part of lesson preparation? Most of us will probably answer “no” to this question. There are a vast number of resources shared online through different networks with guides and even detailed lesson plans and materials. Do we need to “create” every single part of our lesson? We probably do not and need not do so.
At the end of the day, it is what the learners take away from our lessons that matter, than whether or not that lesson is uniquely ours in creation. Dissociating the lesson as “mine”, “ours” can thus remove the attached identity of “me” from the equation. Sometimes, that can lead to wiser decisions than pursuing the route of perfectionism whole-heartedly.
6. Your lesson in the larger scheme of things
Language learning is a long-term process. Most of the time, we are not seeking for our next lesson to be the monumental breakthrough where our learners all suddenly become highly proficient users of the target language. Most of the time, our every lesson is but one of the many lessons lined up to achieve larger overarching goals.
Every single lesson must be positioned in the frame of an overall curriculum to ascertain the key role it is playing. Maybe it is a goal-setting lesson where learners are tasked to identify their personal language learning targets; maybe it is mainly a practice lesson where learners apply previously learnt concepts and skills in an actual communicative situation; or maybe it is a general feedback-focused lesson where we are facilitating learners to do critique of one another’s presentations.
In that light, not every lesson needs to be a blockbuster. There are lessons in which you can cut yourself some slack, where the development of the lesson can be more organic and be less dependent on prior lesson preparation. You can direct your perfectionist effort to other lessons where you need to build the blockbuster(s) and calibrate less for the others.
7. You matter more than the lesson.
Ok, this sounds cheesy. But it is wholesomely true! We are one key factor whether language learning success happens with your learners. As mentioned, our expertise grows with experience. More often than not, our relationships and bonds with our learners matter more than the design and delivery of the lessons. Shifting elsewhere there might have more leverage in producing successful language learners than crafting the next expert lesson with perfection.
Unquestionably, a “perfect” lesson can have a powerful domino effect on other lessons further downstream. However, an educator jaded by perfectionism can face deficiency in capacity to connect with learners and impede future lessons – a perfectionist that can never meet perfection. This is way too detrimental for your mental well-being, and we will want to avoid that at all costs.
Get real-time updates and BE PART OF THE CONVERSATIONS by joining LEA’s online communities on your favourite platforms! Connect with like-minded language educators and get inspired for your next language lesson.
Conclusion
This article is mainly my personal sharing of my take on perfectionism in lesson preparation. The case against perfectionism is not equivalent to the case against striving for excellence (or somewhat “benign perfectionism”). There is a fine line between both, and we need to be discerning about that. This article mainly argues against the perennial perfectionism which may negatively impact our mental well-being and take our focus off the more (arguably) important things.
Beyond education, perfectionism has many supporters on both sides of the camp. I will revisit this some time in future. No worries, I will not strive for perfection. I will just aim to be good.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
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