Impostor!

I had an interesting conversation with one of the new members of my department this week. The initial topic was stress, and how to handle it. There’s plenty of reason for that. The first year of teaching is a genuinely hard experience. My first year as a teacher was the first time in my life that I ever felt like I was trying my best just to keep my head above water. Other teachers may feel differently, but I think that my own experience is pretty typical. At least I could commiserate with my new colleague.

As the conversation continued, we moved to a different topic; feeling like you are a fraud. Feeling that you are just faking your way to your current station in life and that you don’t actually know what you are doing. The notion that you don’t deserve your current job, or the responsibilities that come with it. This is “impostor syndrome,” and it’s a sentiment that is as widespread as the work-stress of the first-year teacher, only unlike the former, impostor syndrome never really goes away. At least it hasn’t for me.

Inspired by this conversation, I found some materials about impostor syndrome, including a quick self-assessment test. I sent it along to all of the untenured teachers in the science department and suggested that they take the test and let me know their scores. Every one of them was in the high to very high range. Each of them told me that they felt like this was a concern. I think they might have been surprised when I shared my own, high-range score with them, but I hope it was helpful/comforting for their own conception of what this kind of score indicates.

I have had a tremendously fortunate career in education. I’ve been able to interact with some of the most recognized and talented science teachers in the country on a regular basis, and in my experience virtually every one of them would score high to very high when considering their own impostor syndrome. It seems that this type of thinking is almost unavoidable for a large number of high-functioning professionals engaged in creative work (at least if those professionals haven’t become insufferably arrogant or completely self-absorbed).

Assuming that’s the case, what can we do about it? It should be evident by now that I’m not qualified to offer anything other than anecdotal advice here, but if you’ll allow that indulgence, here are some thoughts:

Understand that your feelings are not unique. It’s really easy for people who experience impostor syndrome to think that it’s something that only they experience. The nature of the issue is one where people who feel it are inclined to keep those feelings to themselves, lest they are found out for the phonies they are. But that’s exactly backward. Impostor syndrome is widespread, and you’ll probably find that most of the people you look up to and model yourself after in your working life have some amount of it. But you’ll only find that out if you don’t keep it hidden. It’s also only by acknowledging that this is a thing that you feel that you can start to get a handle on just how wrong that feeling is, and how much you deserve to occupy your work-life role.

Feelings are subjective, what you do (or don’t do) is objective. There is a pile of reasons that might lead us to do the things that we do. When it comes to how we act in the world, none of those reasons matter all that much (at least outside of our own mental models). What matters is what we do. I can feel like I’ve lucked into my role in my district as much as I want to. As long as I continue to perform at a level that meets/exceeds the expectations of the people I work with/for, my internal struggles with impostorism don’t matter at all. Problems only arise if I let my inner discomforts affect the work that I do. This is particularly true for new teachers who tend to expect that the work is going to be easier for them than it actually is, and start to freak out when it turns out that is not the case. As an administrator, all I expect from a first-year teacher is to try their best, take suggestions when offered and ask for help when needed. I don’t need particularly polished lessons, or finely crafted student-teacher relationships, or any of the other parts of being a master teacher that develop over time. The only problem I’m going to have is if your feelings overwhelm you to the point that you disengage from working to improve your practice.

Ignore it as much as you can. Seriously. Acknowledge your feelings, shake hands with them, then leave them behind and go about your work. Focus on the work. Time spent teaching kids is maybe the most fun “regular” job you can have. Enjoy it, and do the work that you need to improve at it. Regardless of your internal feelings, you deserve that much. And maybe, if you work at it long enough, you’ll start to feel less like an impostor (or at least become more comfortable with the feeling).

Three quick thoughts off the top of my head for how to deal with Impostor Syndrome. Not like I’m an expert in this area. But I am someone who has handled these kinds of feelings for my entire adult life, and I’d like to think I’ve got some insights, even if they are squarely my own. At the very least, the fact that we impostors are not alone is hopefully a comfort. And once that central truth is grasped, we can all start feeling a little less phony and turn our attention back to developing the craft of education.

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