The thing that I take away most from this article is that we should not force standards of perfection. I know that I am not at an Ivy League school, but I am at a good university and it is difficult sometimes to fit everything in. I can’t say much about social media showing everyone being happy, because I don’t use social media, but we have to remember that nobody is perfect. A “bad’ grade is not the end of the line for anyone, and if the grade is truly not passing, there is always retaking the course.
My parents support me in whatever I choose to do, and they know that I will do my best to get where I want to go in life. They never pressured me into choosing a major (mostly because I’ve known I want to be a teacher since 4th grade), and they are always there to talk to when something goes wrong (like if I get a B when I thought I would grab an A).
It is catastrophic sometimes to find that work you thought was really good wasn’t considered good by the professor’s standards. Sometimes no matter how closely you think you have gotten to those assignment sheet requirements, the professor ends up telling you that you fell short.
When I teach, I will not ask for perfection. I will ask that the students do their best, and look at the requirements for whatever they are doing. I will make a safe environment where they can ask questions without feeling like they are the only one with that question. The requirement sheets will have a fair amount of detail so that the students know what I want to see from them. I also want the students to feel like they can come to me if they are having problems, nobody in my classroom should feel like they have to put on a “happy mask’ if they are not happy.