Back in 2010, as I was beginning my journey as a children’s book author, I had little or no conscious awareness of perfectionism. Like most of my peers, I was a byproduct of the skill, drill, test and repeat model that today’s students are struggling with. While I understood intellectually that no one is perfect, that didn’t stop me, or my peers, from judging me harshly for making mistakes. I joked that I was a recovering perfectionist, but jokes did nothing to alleviate my suspicions that I would never be “good enough.”

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Then two things happened:

 

First, a friend sent me a link to Sir Ken Robinson's 2006 TEDTalk entitled, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" From it I learned the disturbing truth about our industrialized education system that treats children like cars on an assembly line. All children are expected to learn the same things, the same way, and in the same time frame. At the end of the process, they are quality tested and graded.

From this process our children learn to compare, compete, mistrust their creativity, and be afraid to make mistakes. They learn that some are better and more deserving than others, and to measure their self-worth based on how they perform.
 

Second, I was invited to read from my book, Lead with Your Heart, to a combined class of third and fourth graders in Texas. Following the reading I planned to teach the kids how to draw one of  the characters in the book, a dog named Lance. Instead I was confronted with 36 students all telling me that they couldn't draw, that their work was ugly, stupid, crummy, and most importantly not perfect like mine. Say what?
 

When asked to tell me what they thought not perfect meant, they said not perfect people are "stupid, ugly, dumb, messed up, dirty, bad, weird, insane, gross, broken, unhappy, different, rubbish, stinky, disgusting losers." When they were done, the list had 31 negative words and both the teachers and I were in tears. I came away convinced that I needed to help kids acquire emotional intelligence, develop their creativity, and build healthy, reciprocal relationships with the natural world that sustains us. CritterKin and its related books and programs are the result.

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To learn more about CritterKin and its sister initiative, Song Flight, click on the links below.

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