The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 077: "Ish"...The Power of Good Enough with Tammy and Christine
What if "good enough" really was good enough? Perfectionism has become an invisible burden in education, driving burnout and diminishing joy for both teachers and students. In this enlightening conversation, we explore the revolutionary concept of embracing an "ish" mindset—an approach that celebrates progress over perfection and creates space for genuine growth.
Drawing inspiration from Peter H. Reynolds' picture book "Ish" and Jo Bowler's "Math-ish," we unpack how this transformative thinking applies to classroom practice. When we step back from rigid expectations and all-or-nothing thinking, we discover the freedom to analyze what's working, learn from what isn't, and keep moving forward. This isn't about lowering standards—it's about setting reasonable expectations that honor the messy reality of teaching and learning.
We tackle the uncomfortable double standard many educators live with: encouraging students to learn from mistakes while expecting flawless performance from themselves. By adopting an "ish" approach to planning, assessment, and professional growth, teachers can create more sustainable practices that model authentic learning. The conversation explores practical applications, from flexible lesson planning to reflective practice that focuses on direction rather than perfection.
Whether you're struggling with burnout, feeling trapped by expectations of excellence, or simply seeking a more balanced approach to your work, this episode offers a refreshing perspective that might just change how you view success in education. Listen now to discover how embracing the power of "ish" could transform your teaching experience and reignite your joy in the classroom.
This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator podcast, where the focus is on a less-is-more approach to education. Join your hosts, christine Arnold and Tammy Musiawski, authors of the Minimalist Teacher and your School Leadership. Edit a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem each week, as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose and joy.
Speaker 2:What if good enough really was good enough? In today's episode, we're giving perfectionism the side eye and exploring the power of the ish approach in education, Because sometimes done-ish, ready-ish and perfect-ish are exactly what we and our students need to thrive are exactly what we and our students need to thrive. Welcome everybody to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator podcast.
Speaker 3:Welcome. Welcome, Tammy. How are you doing this week? I'm doing well. I'm looking forward to this conversation, as always, but I like the connection that you thought of for this one, so I'm looking forward to it. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good, I'm excited as well to have a chat about this and see where our conversation takes us today. So I'm going to call this episode the ish episode. Tammy, I'm naming it now. It's the ish episode. Yes, love it.
Speaker 2:Tammy and I were chatting we both not in a coordinated approach in any way, shape or form but we both happened to recently read the book Math Ish by Jo Bowler, which is you know, we're not here to promote her work, necessarily, but it just so happens that we've both been picking up and reading that book recently, and in it she also makes reference to the picture book-ish by Peter H Reynolds as well, and it got us thinking about how we can apply this sort of thinking to education and our work as teachers as well.
Speaker 2:So why don't I start with talking about the picture book? Yeah, and then maybe you can tell us a little bit about how the ish comes through with Jo Bowler's work. Sure, is that all right? Yeah, so if you don't know the picture book Ish by Peter H Reynolds, definitely pick it up and have a look. It's a lovely one and, without spoiling the plot too much, in it there's a character who likes to draw but becomes concerned that the drawings aren't accurate or perfect enough and feels a bit put off by it, until another character says it's not quite right, it's not quite a vase, but it's vase-ish, and this inspires the main character to feel more comfortable and confident about not having a perfect drawing, but having an ish drawing, which is a really lovely thought it really is.
Speaker 3:It's such a great book, um, I I've read it at the start of school years as a way to just you kind of embrace a growth mindset with students to say it's okay that we might make a mistake or, you know, we aren't good at something yet, but we'll get there because we're just starting this year together.
Speaker 3:We're just, you know, bringing what we have and growing from there. And so it was kind of fun to see this new book by Jo Bowler, who we've both read. You know other books by her in the past and we know her philosophy and research around teaching math, and so this book Math-ish is really about how math is just much more than calculating and being right or wrong and math being just like this narrow set of ideas. It's much more about making sense of problems. It's about thinking through situations and having different strategies to use to solve problems and knowing that there's multiple ways to look at something, because what we're doing when we're solving mathematical type problems is we are looking for connections and we're looking for patterns, and those are things that our brains are wired to do anyway. Our brain is wired to look for patterns in something, and so if we think about math in this more open way, it becomes a space that's creative for people versus black and white. So it's not just to solve or compute something just to solve or compute something. It's about making sense of problems, thinking about them creatively, looking at different visual representations of what math can look like for people, Because our brains, yes, they do certain things similarly, but many people have different visualizations of how something can look or how our pattern grows. And so when we think about math in that way, it's much more open and invites everybody into that, because everybody can say something or show something about their understanding of math, their understanding of math. So it aligns with Peter Reynolds' book because it really is about having an open mind about math right.
Speaker 3:In the other book it's about art, but it doesn't matter. We're looking about ish in the bigger picture of things, like you said. So how can we apply this broader way of thinking into what we do in education in a really complex space where a lot of times we are looking for excellence? We're looking for we don't say perfection, but sometimes that word excellence means the same thing to people, because maybe that standard is just really hard for people and how do we kind of still get people achieving expectations? But it is, it's not going to look the same for everyone mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:There's a part of the book math ish where mm-hmm she discusses how you know how important estimation is and how we need to do that. But she gives this specific example of how. She's seen examples over and over again of students who are using the procedure or using an algorithm getting a completely wrong answer. But because they haven't estimated or thought about it, they've just applied a standard procedure, they can't see how wrong their answer is. They lose sight of what a reasonable answer would be. Yeah, and I think that is a really good analogy for a lot of what we do in teaching.
Speaker 2:You know, like, if you're so caught up in like okay, I'm following the rules, I'm following the rules, I'm doing what I've been asked to do, you could very easily go down a path of losing track of what is reasonable, what is you know and what good can look like. Um, when we're just stuck in this idea of like I've got to, I've got to follow the content, I've got to do coverage, I've got to follow all of these rules and expectations and what's being asked of me, you can lose track of what is reasonable and I think you know. When we're talking about minimalism in education, I think this idea of bringing back the ish could be a really powerful notion to ground us back in again, of letting go of certain things that aren't serving us and getting back to what is reasonable as she says, to what is reasonable as she says yeah, yeah, I think that's such a great word, reasonable, right, because that's one of the math practice standards you know, like applying reasoning to problem solving.
Speaker 3:And I think you're right, we do get off track so easily with so many things. Right, it could be student behaviors, it could be new initiative, it could be a technology thing coming in, it could be cell phone use, it could be so many things. And so how do we think of something as okay, this is kind of the direction we want to go. It almost makes me feel like a simpler way of thinking, right, because we're not striving for perfection, we're not saying you have to do all these things and make sure your checklist is all checked off, but we're going in that direction. So, as long as you're going in this direction, then you're on the right track. So, which I I think could could make people feel like, what are you even talking about? That feels very nebulous, like, very like what? What does that even mean? But if you think, if you bring it to, like your classroom teaching experience right, and if you have planned a lesson or something I don't even like calling them lessons, but you know like you have some kind of experience planned for your students and you're like, well, that didn't quite go the way I anticipated.
Speaker 3:But instead of thinking of that as a complete failure because it didn't work out as planned, what are the ish pieces of that? So what pieces of the thing that did not go as expected did go as expected? And so pick out some of those pieces, like, oh yeah, you know what the kids actually did follow all the instructions, they got all their materials. They did, they followed the protocol. What was the thing that broke down? And so this could be a way of helping us analyze things that aren't working or don't work for whatever reason. So, yeah, there was, it was ishy, you know, there was, it was kind of there, but what's the thing that threw it off? And so I think, if we then take that bigger picture right so this is the culture we're trying to build in the school and it kind of feels like that we're in, you know, we're ish getting there. What's the thing that's not feeling like we're quite there?
Speaker 2:so it could be a way to to just think about those, those bigger picture things and evaluate them or analyze them for sure, and for individuals who feel like if it's not this perfect image that is in the book or in my head, then it's a complete failure. Yeah, we can move away from that, because if we look at it with that ish viewpoint of it's not quite there, but there was some good stuff in it, we're getting there, what can we learn from it? I think that can be a good place to move from, away from this idea of like it's all or nothing. If it's not perfect, yeah, it's not good enough. You know, I think that could be really helpful, because I know there are a lot of I think there's a lot of teachers out there who who do like to have a very clear vision and really want to control what's going on and what you know.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe not necessarily what the product is, but it could definitely be the product, but it might also be the path that you take to get there and they, they really have a clear vision and it's got to be that or it's a failure. And I think this ish thinking can help us sort of filter out the good and the bad and and help us analyze, because we all know theoretically, we all know, that we learn so much from making mistakes that it's a huge opportunity for growth and development is making mistakes, but I don't necessarily think we all live and die by that knowledge. I think it's fine for somebody else to fail and make mistakes. It's not okay for me to fail and make mistakes. It's not okay for me to fail and make mistakes. So, yeah, it could be a useful. It could be a useful reminder for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:I think so and I I do think that. I mean, we know that perfectionist tendencies come from somewhere, right, but it is very prevalent in the teaching world, right, like you see it often physically, in the physical environment, the way teachers set up their spaces. You see it in just making sure that every student gets what they need, which is great, because that's what we're going for. But sometimes it's in the planning process and we can go overboard too, right, and that gets exhausting. So if we a lot of times in planning I remember you know when we would plan for in Singapore, for in Singapore, you kind of plan, you know half of your time and then cause you know that something is going to bleed over into the next day, right, so like if your plan, we all know that over-planning is good because then you're prepared for whatever, but there does have to be some buffer in there that we've talked about buffer time before, where you do have the wiggle room, and so, like I'm thinking of like planning as ish time, right, where you're like, here are my ideas for how we're going to achieve this. It might look like this, it might look like this, might look like this. It might look like this. It might look like this and, however it turns out, it's going to be fine because it's a learning experience for me as the teacher in planning this way, and for the students.
Speaker 3:So I mean, we've been in the classrooms for a long time, so it's sometimes a little bit easier, like that might feel like winging it to some people, but it's really not.
Speaker 3:It's like you do have a plan, right, you have a plan, but you're like this might not work in this moment with depends on how the kids are coming in, it depends on different factors, who's there, who's not there, and so you might have to shift.
Speaker 3:So I feel like some of our planning pieces might feel kind of ishy because we're like okay, we have the ideas, but I'm not going to get super meticulous about certain things because I might have to flex, I might need to change, and I don't want to have wasted my time getting all this stuff prepared or whatever if it's not going to work Now. That doesn't mean I'm not going to plan and prepare what I need, obviously, but we can go overboard, like I said, with like over planning too much and getting in too much into the weeds and details, about having exactly everything and expecting it to go that way as well so, yeah, and I think we've talked before about planning bell to bell and how, yeah, you're setting yourself up for failure for failure and if not, failure frustration because, yeah, more than anything, something's gonna mess you up.
Speaker 2:If you've planned every minute of the day or the week, um, yeah, you're not, you're not allowing for anything coming sideways at you or responding to the kids that are in front of you. You know, you're not allowing for any of that. So it that mindset while it might feel like I'm prepared, I'm ready, I've got this is actually leading us down that path of of, you know, control, and it has to be exactly what I'm thinking um, because I think, I think it. I can't really imagine someone planning in that level but also being okay with it going off the rails. Do you know what I mean? Those two things don't sort of go together. I can't imagine someone who's put all of that time in planning bell to bell for the whole week is also then like but it didn't work out like that. Those two don't really go together, do they?
Speaker 3:no? No, unless you're doing it for compliance, which I've had to do, right, which is, we know, like a big colossal waste of time, most of the time, most of the time, but like, yeah, anyway, that's another story.
Speaker 2:That is another story.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. So I think what stands out for me a lot with an ish way of thinking is that it's having a step back from being in all the details, right, so it's easy to get really sucked into all your everyday things and not have a moment to, like, step back and evaluate what's happened. So there might be, you know, one of those practices as a good teacher is you do need a bit of time to just sit and think through what's been going well, what didn't work, and so this might be a way that you can frame your thinking right so you can think was this ish? Was I on the right track? When am I going to have my ish time? Something like that right, just as a kind of way to reflect almost am I in the arena or am I way out in left field with things?
Speaker 3:Openness of this, which again can feel scary for educators who need more of the control, right, because this is definitely a mindset thing, and so, like I was telling you earlier about no-transcript a good analogy here it's almost like some kind of barrier, like a wall or something, where it's like I'm going to teach my kids in this way, but I'm not going to learn in this way because this is how I have always learned in the past and I don't need to experience that. But I'll do that for my students and so that can take away some of that ish. I think because you're becoming more rigid in I mean, obviously you know how you think you learn best, but also if you're going to be teaching other people, that's different, right? So it's one thing to like take a course on something and it's another to be take a workshop on teaching strategies and not participate in the strategies. Does that make sense? I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2:It would be a teacher giving feedback and an opportunity for students to redo or resubmit based on feedback, but then expecting their first attempt to be the final attempt. Yeah, it would be. Yeah, I'm trying to teach you that you can learn and grow and iterate and improve, but for expectations for myself, it needs to be done right the first time, and so that ish really frees people up, I think, to let go a little bit and apply the same ideas to themselves. Like it doesn't have to be perfect the first time. I can grow and learn from mistakes, just like my students can. So, hopefully, hopefully, that's the message we're getting across to everybody today, that we're not just saying do a half-hearted job at everything right no, not at all.
Speaker 3:Not at all, because this is this does require a lot of thought. You know there is a lot of critical thinking involved in getting to like transport. This is a transformation of your mindset and it's not an easy process. So, like, I'm definitely still fixed in some things just with everyday life, but I tried. You know, I I always am like okay, I try to be open, but also I'm just gonna do this but I think that we could all learn a little bit there, I think right exactly, exactly for sure.
Speaker 3:So I think any pare down pointers on this idea of ish tammy well, I think that just give it a try, right, like even just read the peter reynolds book yeah, if you haven't read it and get a sense of what we're talking about, this idea, through that story.
Speaker 2:I was thinking as well. Something that I've talked about repeatedly on the podcast is, you know, having your three priorities for the day. I wonder if you could ish that habit. And so, instead of, like, I'm going to have three perfect, complete to-dos done by the end of the day, what would the ish version of that look like? Oh, yeah, yeah. What is something that I'd be comfortable finishing in my day without it having to be just right the first time?
Speaker 3:I think I live in that realm, I think that's where I'm at. Okay, yeah, yeah. And it feels okay because I know that you know, I know how I operate with deadlines and I know how I can be flexible with things and still get things accomplished, so that that's very doable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally know what you mean. I think, if I'm, I think I need to work on the ish approach. When I am sharing something with others the first time, I think I try and edit and revise a little bit too much and maybe I need to have that ish approach of like why don't I?
Speaker 3:share what I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's a draft.
Speaker 2:Let me share what I have, get some feedback and make it even better than what I could have edited and revised myself.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, relatable for sure. I think we've lived in that together as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we have.
Speaker 3:Well, I liked this conversation and, like you said, I hope our listeners have gotten what we hoped to share, even though it does feel like kind of not. It doesn't feel concrete in a way, because we are talking about fuzzy borders, fuzzy lines almost, but I mean it's something to think about.
Speaker 2:for sure it is definitely a mindset thing, absolutely yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much, christine I thank you and hope everyone has a go at an ish approach to their work. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducationcom.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducationcom and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
