As You Like It: The Ideal Life

Part of being a trainer who teaches teachers is supporting them when they go back to their classrooms to begin implementing the techniques that you have taught them. You exchange emails, speak on the phone and then eventually visit their classrooms to see them in action. It’s always a nerve-wracking experience for a teacher, no matter how many times you insist that you’re only there to help them get the hang of the new methods. When someone is sitting in your classroom taking notes, support is the last thing on your mind.

I know. I’ve been there countless times. And though I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t bother me much, there’s still that flutter in my stomach that screams, “You’re being judged and found wanting!” So I always visit with a smile and laughter; heck, I would strew flowers and candy before me if that would make the teacher feel calmer. I thank everyone for inviting me into their classroom, and then I try to melt into the woodwork.

I’ve enjoyed making the rounds watching talented teachers and eager students. The last lesson that I observed was in vocabulary. To an outsider, teaching vocabulary sounds like a piece of cake. They envision the usual, “Here’s a list of words, use them in a sentence and there’s a quiz at the end of the week.” The words are learned for that week and then completely forgotten. Students consider them “test” words, not to be confused with real world stuff.

This new method helps students make the words their own — to use them, play with them, experiment with them, everything but forget them. One of the exercises involves much class discussion as the students use them in their own contexts. That day the first word that the teacher wrote on the board was “ideal.” She explained that it meant perfect. She told the students that she lived just a few blocks from the school and so it was an ideal location for her — she could walk to work. Then she turned to her class and asked them to describe their ideal home or job.

The room became very quiet as each student thought for a moment and then it burst into life. They couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. One woman described her house in the suburbs, where it was quiet, surrounded with grass and flowers and had a white picket fence. I couldn’t help but think, yeah just wait till you’ll have to mow that lawn, paint the damned fence every year, trim the hedges and put down mulch. Another described a mansion complete with swimming pool. Yet another added a gym and a movie theater to their mansion, insisting that it would be ideal. The homes got bigger and fancier with every telling.

Their ideal jobs were all about little work, late start times, vacations, and of course, tons of money. One woman finally spoke up and told the class that her ideal job was to have one, and when she finally got one, to work hard and feel that she earned her salary and maybe did a little good for the world. They were all quiet after that.

What a perfectly rotten word: ideal. It’s been the bane of my existence for a long time now. If only this would happen, or that would change, everything would be perfect. If only I got that job, that apartment, finished that degree, got the raise, lost the weight — you know the litany. I’m always out there ruining what could be a wonderful time with perfect. It happened again this Mother’s Day.

As you know, my mom now lives only a few minutes away from us instead of across an ocean, so now we can celebrate all kinds of “firsts” — the first time we’ve spent birthdays together, the first Thanksgiving, the first spring, the first Passover, and of course, the first Mother’s Day. Do I relax and enjoy them like most people? Of course not. I have to make it ideal. No turkey is juicy enough, no cake is sweet enough, no flowers are fragrant enough. I haven’t spent any of these firsts with my mom for 40 years so now they all have to be perfect to make up for all the lost time.

I outdid myself on Mother’s Day. Early on I decided that this day would be all about mom. I planned a meal composed of the dishes she loves, searched for the most beautiful roses, made sure we had champagne and orange juice for her favorite mimosas. I anguished over the card, the gift, the cake, the everything. This would be perfect if it killed me. And it just about did.

I was so tight that day you could see me quiver. Nothing was too small to obsess over. That evening I was the perfect wreck — exhausted, depressed and ready to cry. I thought about the day before when mom and I had spent a perfectly lovely, lazy day getting our nails done and having lunch — impromptu and relaxed.

It was an epiphany, maybe even the perfect epiphany. Maybe, just maybe, I could banish ideal and perfect from my vocabulary along with the guilt that accompanies them. Because, as my dear friend Nancy told me, “Guilt is self indulgent when you really have nothing to feel guilty about.” The most perfect advice I’ve ever received.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Jun 1 2011. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.