On Monday, I picked up my daughter from her college summer school math (high level math that only math geeks would understand) and drove her across town.  While we were driving, she (who is normally not very talkative) said, "Wow, there is really a difference between good instructors and not-so-good instructors."  Immediately, I felt my stomach tighten and those pesky, negative thoughts that plague me jumped up and took a lap around my head.

"Like, what to do you mean sweetie?" I said in a voice that was a little too high pitched. I could feel my throat getting warm as the feeling of self-doubt bubbled up. My daughter just pitched a new 'standard' that I was going to subconsciously hold myself to.

"You know, teachers who really explain things and don't just jump in and start, where you are left going, "Whoa," what's going on," she answered.

"Oh," I said, my voice getting higher.  "So, tell me what that looks like."

"Well, they take the TIME to explain why we are doing the math that we are doing. They don't just jump into the material and assume we know why, or don't care if we know why or not."

"Got it," I answered, my voice hitting the top octave of squeakiness now as my throat closed.  I drove in silence for a few moments while the fearful thought of, Am I a good teacher or not? ran around my head again.  The words of a past supervisor of mine flew into the mix, "You are so competitive, Nancy." Me? Competitive? I am really bad at sports...so, how can I be competitive? But here was that competitive streak again, and the standard I was competing for - perfect teacher.

I get stuck ruminating on thoughts of being the perfect teacher way too often. I just obsess about it even though I know not everyone will like me all the time, and not every student will love my classes (even if I want to be their best teacher ever). Nope, it just isn't going to happen.  So, essentially, I am competing with myself against some standard of perfection that I cannot even articulate. 

I really have no idea of what the perfect teacher looks like.

Worse, I don't know what I would look like if I were the perfect teacher.

It really doesn't matter that I could logically talk myself off the 'perfect' shelf this time by just considering how ridiculous my self-doubt was over this story of what makes a good teacher. What mattered is how I tend to beat myself up. Expecting that perfect is the standard to strive for, when, in reality being the imperfect teacher probably makes me more human, and a better teacher in the end, is just plain stupid.  But I do beat myself up. 

I am sure that the next time my student evaluations are delivered to my faculty mailbox, I will grab that envelope with a slightly sweaty palm and see myself driving my daughter across town and hear her saying, "You know the difference between...."

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