We have learned through my childhood tales that I historically have feared closet monsters and escalators, acted like an ungrateful spoiled brat, and been slow to forgive myself. Today, I write to confess and defend my perfectionism and introversion as it was brought to light in kindergarten.
Kindergarten classic
I have quite a few lovely memories from kindergarten. I remember sitting in a circle playing the chanting game, “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” I remember listening to “Chicka chicka boom boom” (will there be enough room?) at the beginning of nap time and I remember the one and only day I fell asleep during nap time. I remember when a classmate brought her Life Size Barbie to school for show and tell after Christmas (I remember being incredibly jealous) and I remember the Jewish kid that taught us about dreidels. I remember riding on an old train for a class field trip and, as it was my birthday, the whole train singing happy birthday to me.
But these happy moments are overshadowed by the unforgettable, life-altering, unjust tab-pulling incident.
Wall of Doom
Primary school teachers will be familiar with the use of color-coded behavior charts for managing the behavior of unruly rug rats. It usually looks like a wall of pockets labeled with the students’ names, each filled with several different pieces of colored paper. When a five year-old is disobedient, the consequence is that he must change his color. Moving from green to yellow, for example, merely serves as a warning, but unchecked behavior sends a child into the red zone and elicits some type of punishment.
At my elementary school, the buzzword for this system was “tabs.” In my kindergarten class we actually had quite a few layers of colored tabs in our pockets (not just green, yellow, and red), so if a student was commanded to go “pull a tab,” there was a definite cushion before he got to the serious, in-deep-trouble colors. But I already alluded to my perfectionism, and I’ve told you before what an obedient child I was. (Minus the meatloaf.) So one can imagine how potentially catastrophic it might have been to my five year-old perfectionist soul if I had to pull even one tab.
Another well-known characteristic of early elementary education is the use of activities like “share time” to practice effective communication and prepare rug rats to survive in a culture that places a high value on extraversion. Nowadays education experts like to call this an invaluable 21st century skill. I like to call this the reason more and more people are flocking to the world’s few remaining silent refuges (yoga, for example).
Anyway, we had a rotating share time schedule in my kindergarten class, with four or five students assigned each share time day. Well, one fateful morning, I paced around my house stewing over what on earth I could say for share time. I thought and thought and thought. I racked my brain, I asked my mom, I worried my lip to death. I got to school with nothing in mind except, “What am I going to say? What am I going to say? WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY?!?!”
The school bell rang. We started our morning routines. They didn’t last long enough. We moved to the carpet for share time. What am I going to say? What am I going to say? One student began. I didn’t hear a word she said. What am I going to say? Another student. Another. How could time be going so fast? What am I going to say? And suddenly all my thoughts were interrupted and all my worst fears came to fruition when I realized my teacher had been calling my name.
Rachel? …Rachel?
She’d been calling on me to share something and I hadn’t even noticed because I was so worried about coming up with the perfect thing to say. I was still thinking and hurrying my brain to formulate something when-
(Cue the doom music.)
Rachel! GO PULL A TAB!
The next moments were a blur. In a daze I walked to the board to move my perfect green tab to reveal some other horrible, scarring color. I tried to make sense of it. Of all my worries that morning, I never saw this coming. I had counted myself a failure enough for not having something valuable to share, but now on top of this, perfect little student that I was, I would have to live with the knowledge forever on my conscience and Personal Perfection Record that once I had to pull a tab. And why? I had been trying really hard to perform perfectly for share time. I had thought all morning! I had worried myself to death! It wasn’t my fault! What kind of world are we coming to when students are punished for thinking and disturbing no one?
A few years later I found myself in a boasting competition with my friends. We bragged to each other about all E’s on our report cards (because when you’re that young they don’t use the ABC’s but rather ESU’s: Excellent, or – heaven forbid – Satisfactory, or – may the underworld freeze over – Unsatisfactory). But when the tab-pulling records were brought up, I had to hang my head in shame. I couldn’t say that I had never pulled a tab.
I’m not sure whether the cause of my silence at the time was due more to perfectionism or more to introversion. I was definitely shyer when I was younger, but while I may have often been quiet, I didn’t have stage fright. I was often quite willing to perform the role of clown and storyteller, especially among friends and family.
Even today, I surprise people when I “come out of my shell” to entertain a group with a story. But I’ve always had a regard for valuable things and a disregard for small talk. As an introvert I think a whole lot, and I’m rather protective of my time and space because I need it to think. I like to weed through all the things I write in my head and try to only spit out what is worthwhile, which is how it relates to perfectionism. I’d rather only say it if it’s perfectly said.
For example, I have a million blog post drafts sitting around waiting to be perfected and published. I hammer them out when I’m in the writing zone, but then I reread them and thoroughly dislike them. I set them aside for a few weeks and when I feel guilty for not having written a post in a while I take a look at one of the drafts. To my surprise, I find it – aside from one or two changes – perfect for publishing that instant and I ask myself why I didn’t publish it weeks ago. In fact, that is exactly what happened to this post. As an introvert I needed to stew on it and make sure it was valuable and as a perfectionist I couldn’t risk publishing something imperfect or unworthy of praise. Now you realize that my excuse for being a blogging renegade for the past month is clearly not that I didn’t have time to write; I just wanted to wait to offer you my very best. I hope it doesn’t disappoint, and I really hope you don’t make me go pull a tab for being silent for so long.
So, that fateful day back in kindergarten, that single mar on my Perfect Behavior Record, that horrible day of injustice, I didn’t have a story for share time. But now I do. Can this absolve me of my tab-pulling and lack-of-blogging sins?
Like this:
2 bloggers like this post.
