[The teacher] then described her point system and the many things a child could do that would result in a lost point. “Most kids, you see, lose a point here and there for their handwriting, or talking without raising their hands, or forgetting to turn in a homework assignment. That kind of thing. Your son, though, has never lost a point for anything!”
The looks of confusion on my parents’ faces immediately transformed into gigantic smiles. Rather than be surprised by this report, they were relieved to hear I was continuing my perfect record.
“No, no,” the teacher continued. “You misunderstand. I mean, you should be proud that Jason’s work is excellent. My concern is that he is a little too diligent. It’s just not altogether healthy for someone so young to be concerned with doing everything perfectly.”
My parents finally got what the teacher was talking about. They’d also been bewildered by similar behavior at home. My father blurted out,
almost without thinking, “You know, it would be good for him to lose a point here and there, just so he can get used to the idea. Maybe he’d loosen
up a little.”
The teacher agreed. From that remark, a plan was born in which it was decided that sometime during the upcoming week, she would manufacture some arbitrary reason for deducting a point. But it wasn’t until the next report that I became aware of my demerit. I couldn’t believe it! I cried and sulked for days, devastated by my perceived failure. Even after my parents revealed that the teacher did this deliberately to teach me an important lesson, I still couldn’t forgive myself for the lapse. I genuinely believed that if I’d done a better job, the teacher couldn’t have found a single slip, no matter how hard she tried. Such was my misguided sense of proportion that for years afterward, it still bothered me that I’d lost that point. If I learned a lesson from the experience, it was to work even harder toward perfection.