In the world of education, it is easy to become obsessed with the pursuit of perfection. Teachers and students alike strive for excellence, academic, pastoral, and otherwise, pushing themselves to achieve the best results possible and constantly seeking to improve processes, knowledge and skills. I look back on over 20 years of working in schools and see all the things that have been added for teachers, school leaders and support staff to do. All of the various things that have been added have been added for good reason, to improve education or to address risks or dangers, but they largely have all been additions; additional systems, additional processes, additional statutory requirements, additional school requirements, inspection requirements, compliance requirements, etc. We cannot infinitely continue to add. Also, in this relentless pursuit of perfection, it is all too easy to overlook the value of “good enough” and the negative effects that perfectionism can have.
The concept of “perfect” is a subjective one, and what one person considers to be perfect may not necessarily be the same for another. The problem with striving for perfection in education is that it can lead to unrealistic expectations, which in turn can lead to feelings of failure, anxiety, and stress. It can lead to increasing workload where workload is a considerable issue impacting on educators the world over. We can become so fixated on getting everything right that we lose sight of the bigger picture, and what really matters and is most important. And what is most important is equally subjective; is it academic achievement, developing character, soft skills, sportsmanship, preparing students for future life, supporting student wellbeing, or the many other things which schools are involved in.
I believe the culture of constant addition is doomed to fail us, it is simply unsustainable. We do not have the resources and this is already clear given ongoing discussions regarding workload in schools. As such we need to look towards what is most important and prioritising. We need to look towards “doing less” which is one of the principles I have shared with my team in looking to identify the tasks and activities we do that add little value or provide little impact, seeking to cease these or spend less time on them. Now this is a difficult process as anything which has been added has been added for a reason however not all reasons are equal and the impact and value of all tasks and activities are also not equal. And this is what is hard in comparing tasks and identifying which are worthwhile to continue and which can be ceased or reduced, while acknowledging that ceasing any tasks will result in a negative impact; Remember we started a task for a positive reason, so ceasing or reducing time on it can only reverse this; a negative impact. But we need to start to reverse the culture of addition before we reach a tipping point, before the workload crisis goes beyond where it already is.
In terms of the difficult task of prioritisation I always come back to values; A schools values should help guide on identifying that which is important and which adds value, therefore helping in identifying the things it might be possible to cease doing. And if not ceasing doing things it should help in identifying priorities and allocation of resources so rather than stopping something, we may simply do less of it. These are the difficult discussions which need to happen, identifying how to divide up the limited resources available, and what areas or tasks cannot be done, should not be done, or will see less resources to make way for other things.
In schools and colleges we want to do the best for our students but maybe in seeking to do so we need to recognise that best does not mean perfect as this simply isnt possible; the resources, the staff, the time, etc will never be sufficient to be perfect. Therefore do we need to become comfortable with “good enough”? I feel as a manager of an IT support function that this is the right thing to do although equally as an educator I am uncomfortable with it from a student and a learning point of view, where I would want to deliver the best possible learning experience. But maybe the discomfort is unavoidable, and better to work with good enough than to try to be perfect across too many areas of education, the pastoral, academic, wellbeing, health, fitness, etc, such that we fall significantly short of even good across all of them.
The above is a bit of a rambling chain of thoughts but in terms of sharing my thoughts, concerns and ideas, hopefully it is Good Enough!
Technology and Learning