Stefanie's blog
Major: English with Secondary Education Certification

In 2006, I rediscovered my love for Mary Poppins. As a wide-eyed American student abroad in Lancaster, England, how could I not want to reconnect with the spoonful-of-sugar-wielding nanny whose prim accent, impeccable manners, and charming cockney friend challenged me to learn how to spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” as soon as possible, so as to wow any future spelling bee opponents?

With all due respect to the lovely and wonderful Julie Andrews, who portrayed the Disney-fied Ms. Poppins, there’s a bit more vim and vigor to the character than my younger self realized. Cait, a friend I met while abroad who was just as enamored with Mary Poppins, was flabbergasted by the fact that I’d never read the series of books on which the Disney movie was based. On her insistence, I borrowed the first two books in the series from Lancaster’s library. The Mary Poppins of the page is prickly and precise, witty and wise, everything Julie Andrews made her out to be and more.

As our term abroad came to a close, Cait and I made the spur-of-the-moment decision to travel to London to meet Mary Poppins—or, at the very least, enjoy watching her newest incarnation on the West End Stage. Dressed up and sitting behind a group of British schoolgirls, their accented calls of “Headmahstah!” enchanting us each time they addressed their principal, Cait and I reveled in the world created by the theatrical production of Mary Poppins.

In one new song, its title lifted from P.L. Travers’s pages, Mary describes herself as “Practically Perfect.” She is prim and proper, never too stern, always prepared for any occasion or obstacle. As I begin my second semester of teaching, however, I realize that I, no matter what my inner idealist may want, am not and cannot be Mary Poppins. Part of becoming a good teacher, I think, is not striving to be “practically perfect,” but rather, learning to live with my imperfections.

Perfectionism has, for quite some time, been one of my most aggravating and dogged double-edged traits. Perfectionism demanded that I work long hours on essays and school projects, losing valuable hours of sleep that I might have needed to preserve my health for the future, but that same perfectionism helped me to produce good work that I was proud of. Perfectionism made me challenge myself, prompted me to learn more than what was required, encouraged me to do my absolute best at all times. Perfectionism for a new teacher, however, can be draining and discouraging. We perfectionists forget sometimes that we must learn before we perfect, and the first year of teaching is all about learning from our own mistakes.

As a first year teacher, there will be many nights when you, dear reader, return home knowing that you could have presented a concept better, that you could have shared even more information than what was covered that day. You will wish you were more organized, more experienced, and more knowledgeable of your content area, your school’s policies, and your students’ needs. Perhaps you were a straight-A student; you may leave your classroom wondering if you know anything at all. The “perfect” lesson you had planned to present the poem or the essay assignment falls apart, and all you can do is hang on to the debris as it crashes down around you, wishing then and there that you had a talking parrot-head umbrella to help soften the hard landing.

Students are unpredictable; the average school day is unpredictable; every moment you will spend in a classroom is bursting with unpredictability; but isn’t that what makes teaching such a great adventure? You will get frustrated. You will get angry and feel guilty for being that angry later. You will cry, you will pour over textbooks and papers and lesson plans until your eyes want to fall out of their sockets, but if you love the job and the unpredictable young people you work for, you will return to work the next day despite (or perhaps because of ) the challenges you know it will bring. In this way, you have “one-upped” Mary Poppins. The “practically perfect” nanny, for all her magical carpetbag-carrying and extraordinary spelling powers, helps charges Jane and Michael only as the weather dictates. She is at the mercy of the elements, coming and going as the wind changes. You are constant, and for some students, you are one of the few constant presences in their lives.

Since I’ve only been teaching for a few months, I’m probably assuming too much for this blog; a few months in the classroom does not a wise or an experienced teacher make. However, I can be honest about my experience thus far and leave the conclusion of this blog to another writer whose wisdom and talent surpasses my own. On the eve of my teaching career, I read a tiny book by Anna Quindlen, a favorite author of mine, called Being Perfect. She writes:

“Nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great, ever came out of imitations. What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

That’s wisdom even the practically perfect Mary Poppins would appreciate.