Elementary Column

aside his ideas, and asked his son what he would like the feeder to look like. The boy described something similar to a shoebox. When dad asked what kind of wood they would use, his son walked over to the scrap bin, rummaged around, and pulled out four boards of varying sizes and species. By this time, the engineering side of his personality was in meltdown mode, but dad managed to bite his lip and ask how the boards should be cut and fitted together. To make a long story short, out came the glue gun, and taking the boards just as they came from the scrap pile, a lopsided, ramshackle, beautiful work of art was created. The boy beamed with pride and joy as together they placed the filled bird feeder on a stump in the back yard. As his son ran off in search of a new adventure, the engineer real- ized that the process of building the project together far outweighed the need to satisfy the perfectionist side of his own nature. perfectly in tune or getting all the words right; it was the joy expressed in their music that counted. The other event that caused me to reassess my values came during one of my annual bouts of pre-concert laryngitis. My non-musician wife couldn’t understand my obsession with perfection and innocently remarked, “What are you getting all stressed out for? It’s just a little kids’ show.” Once I was able to peel myself off the ceiling, I stopped and realized she was right—it was only a little kids’ show, and it was the kids’

This story reminded me of the early years of my career, when I would obsess over my elementary students’ performance in their school programs.I would rehearse class after class to the point where I would develop laryngitis in my goal for perfection. Two things finally happened that caused me to reconsider my insistence on absolute perfection. The first occurred when my son was 4 years old and sang in a Christmas pageant at church. As he stood in front with 15 other preschoolers, the only thing I cared about was seeing him participating and enjoying himself, and the pride in my chest and the stupid grin on my face certainly matched the joy and enthusiasm radiating from those young singers. It didn’t matter that they weren’t continued on page 16...