professionals are still human beings
In all levels of school (elementary school, middle school, high school, and college), I was under a false illusion that my teachers and professors were perfect, flawless human beings with shiny, glimmer-y lives who had never made a mistake throughout their entire lives. These people made their professions look so easy and they impressed me so much.
Because I was under this false illusion, I felt that if I followed the education pathway into a profession, I had to be a perfect, flawless human being as well. No past failures, no mistakes EVER. At this point in life, I’ve gone through grade school, a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and am now working towards my PhD. It has taken me until about the past three years to realize that all of these people that I have always looked up to and viewed as perfect specimens are just normal people. Normal people, just like me, who have a full, normal life outside of their teaching or research job. Normal people who have most likely also experienced failure on several occasions during their journeys. This realization has helped me take a lot of pressure off of myself and I now understand that if I just work hard, keep passion as a driving force, and do what I am supposed to be doing, then I will continue to find success. Everyone is human, and we must always remember this.
To say it again, everyone is human, and we must always remember this. Even our professors. No matter what our role is, we can all learn from one another and we have valuable things to teach and share.
April 23, 2018 @ 3:39 pm
YES! I totally felt this way as well when I was younger. It took me a long time as well to realize that my teachers, professors, coaches, etc are all humans too. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can be perfect. And, nobody should be perfect. It is so important for each of us to remember, especially on the “bad” days that everyone experiences failure in one way or the other. Just reading your post helped me calm down a little, as a remember that even my advisors have failed, do fail, and will fail in the future … just like I have, I do, and I will. And that is okay 🙂
April 23, 2018 @ 5:33 pm
I really liked your post! I felt this way too, but as I started working with my adviser, and other graduate students during my PhD degree, I figured out that no one is perfect. We are all human, we have all experienced failure, and the best we can do is to try to be “great,” but not “perfect.”
April 23, 2018 @ 10:14 pm
Your comments encouraged me to find out about mistakes made by professors. “The primary mistake that newly tenured faculty make is that they continue working as if they are still racing against a ticking tenure clock. The fear of not winning tenure led them to work long hours and to neglect their health, relationships and leisure. And then when they win tenure, they keep working as if nothing has changed. Continuing to act as if work is their life — instead of their job — often results in imbalance, illness and misery” (Rockquemore, 2016). It is useful to remember that there are other important things in life besides our work. I will add that I think this example can apply to disciplines outside of academia.
Rockquemore, K.A. (2016, June 8). Advice for the Newly Tenured. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/08/mistakes-newly-tenured-professors-can-make-essay
April 24, 2018 @ 10:38 am
Kadie, excellent points here. I have always assumed everyone is flawed, except me of course. lol. Yes, we are taught to respect and revere the educators and that impedes our open perception to look at them as people, at least that is my old man upbringing. Once we realize everyone has gone through struggles to achieve success, it allows us to take academic chances that might lead to failure. Unfortunately, I think many professors forgot they are human and made mistakes and crush hopes and dreams if you fail at something. Grades are a great way to do that. Professors don’t have time to work WITH students and therefore don’t have time for failure in projects. Get it right, get a degree, and get out seems to be our mentality in PhD work. Thanks for this post and keep up the good fight Cheech.
April 24, 2018 @ 9:44 pm
I really enjoyed reading your post and I definitely had a similar view of professors and teachers throughout my education. I really appreciated the end of your blog post where you highlight that we can all learn from each other. That is such an important point to keep in mind! Thanks for the post!
April 25, 2018 @ 8:12 am
I think we can use this enlightenment we all experience and use it to change the dialogue in our classrooms as well. Highlighting our imperfections and failures is crucial modeling for our students. And it can also be the foundation for providing a safe space for our students to own their imperfections and failures. As beginning professionals, I think we fall into that trap of wanting to be perfect ourselves even if we might realize no one is perfect- we must also remove the expectations of perfection from ourselves to be effective teachers.
April 25, 2018 @ 12:24 pm
Great Post! enjoyed reading your blog because this is exactly what I felt until three years ago that I started working towards my Ph.D. under the supervision of a new assistant professor. I came to realize that being professor does not mean to be a perfect person and always there is room to improve. By this experience, I now feel more confident about my future career goal to be a professor.
April 25, 2018 @ 2:11 pm
Hey Kadie. I loved reading your thoughts this week and totally agree with you. I too used to think that everyone I looked up to was perfect, I also thought that the people that went on to get PhD’s were geniuses and I wasn’t so that was never going to be for me. It wasn’t until I was getting my masters that I realized a PhD was even potentially an option for a non-genius like me. It’s so funny to look back and see how different our perceptions of people are when we reach the level we once looked up to and realize, we are all just regular human beings. 🙂
April 25, 2018 @ 3:50 pm
It’s perfect post for our last blogging. I also thought that I have to be perfect until starting my PhD degree here. As a professor, I was trying to be perfect to be ready for all possible questions, but I’m not sure that was really worthy to spend my all time. I could spend the time to interact with the students or to assist them in many different ways. Yes, we are human, it’s really important point to keep in mind. Thanks!
April 25, 2018 @ 3:54 pm
Hi, Kadie. Thanks for the post. Yes, you are right all of us are human beings and none of us are more perfect than the other. When we think like that, it is easy to accept that the classroom is a learning environment for all of us, even for professors. Everybody in the classroom is equal and anybody can learn from another person regardless of the role.