1 November 2017: "But I don't want to go 40!" --one of my best and brightest students today, in response to my trying to tell her to go a bit easy on herself, take a breath, and rest. Just before the comment above, I told her, "You've been going 80 miles an hour since you got here [two years ago]. You've been superb. But now it's okay to go 40 for a bit."
Man, do I see a lot my overachieving, type-A self in this young lady. She just wants to be done and stop for a bit, but also can't bear to give less than 100%.
The entire conversation was a good reminder to keep an eye on my over-achieving students, too. Some risk running themselves ragged or not letting "good enough" be good enough. At another point in our conversation (about a paper she needs to write for my class), I said, "And you'll do a great job," thinking I was being helpful. (Students love to hear you believe in them, right?) Her response? "Don't say that!" What I saw was that expecting nothing but the best from her was only adding to her stress.
So we took some breaths and talked about how to get her on the road to feeling a bit better. There's more I need to do, but at least we got started...
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