student essays on perfectionism

Perfectionism can harm even the most talented student – but schools can make a difference

Professor in the School of Science, Technology, and Health, York St John University

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Depending on the circumstances, perfectionism can lead to better performance in school or at work. Or it can make performance worse. But any performance gains are likely to be outweighed by wellbeing issues . There are links between perfectionism and burnout and depression , for example.

Evidence for these types of negative effects has been found in a range of settings, including among young people for whom perfectionism is a vulnerability factor for mental health. However, practical measures – like school lessons – could make a difference.

Perfectionism is a personality characteristic that includes the tendency to have unrealistically high standards and to be overly critical. It can lead to a complex mix of a desire to prove yourself and a fear of inadequacy, and consequently the frequent experience of anxiety, worry and doubt.

There are some recent studies that vividly illustrate the vulnerability of young people to perfectionism. For example, in one study led by one of the PhD students in my research group looked at the relationship between perfectionism and social media use.

The study of 135 adolescent girls found the female teenagers who were most likely to report depressive symptoms when comparing their appearance to others were those who reported higher levels of “self-critical perfectionism”.

Our research group also conducted a large review of academic research that has been conducted on perfectionism among academically gifted students. This also showed the various ways perfectionism can influence students.

Drawing from 36 studies in this area, we found that the doubts, concerns, and fears characteristic of perfectionism can take their toll on even the most talented students.

Surprisingly, only one study had tested out practical ways to address perfectionism. The findings were promising, though. There was some evidence that a series of lessons focused on coping with pressures, expectations, and the unhealthy aspects of perfectionism could help students.

We were motivated by the lack of work in this area and the belief that teachers and schools can play a key role in preventing difficulties with perfectionism before they arise. We have explored what can be done in the classroom to support students who have perfectionistic tendencies.

Practical approaches

Working with the education charity the National Association for Able Children in Education ( NACE ), colleagues and I have put together resources to help schools respond to this area of concern and to provide practical suggestions for young people, teachers and parents.

One of our resources is a simple classroom lesson designed to increase levels of “perfectionism literacy”. Our intention in creating the resource was to help young people recognise the features of perfectionism, increase their knowledge of the help available, and become more willing to seek help if needed.

The lesson provides information on perfectionism and includes an activity focused on the difference between perfectionism and doing things well.

The purpose of this task is to emphasise that often, good is good enough. Pursuing perfection is unnecessary and unrealistic, and working hard and doing your best is not only different from aiming to be perfect, but also a better and more rewarding goal.

Another activity teaches young people about different “flavours” of perfectionism . This analogy draws attention to how perfectionism comes in different forms and how it can include views of others and how others view us.

We tend to think of perfectionism in personal terms – having unrealistic standards for ourselves, for example. However, perfectionism can also include others , expecting perfection from others or believing that others expect you to be perfect.

This means that perfectionism influences not only our own wellbeing but can also have a negative impact on our relationships with others.

We recently piloted the materials in one secondary school. Students were guided through the lesson by a teacher who received a small amount of training and the opportunity to ask questions and practice with the materials.

Our evaluation of the lesson showed that it had a positive impact on students. Following the lesson, students reported they had more knowledge of perfectionism and better recognised the importance of seeking support if needed.

It is also important that teachers consider the degree to which current practice in their classrooms might inadvertently encourage, rather than discourage, perfectionistic thinking in their students.

Unrealistic expectations, frequent or excessive criticism, anxiousness over mistakes, and public use of rewards and sanctions may all reinforce perfectionism in students. Although this is a new area of research and teaching practice, we think it is key to long-term positive changes.

Teachers and parents need to be able to recognise perfectionistic behaviour and the difficulties that children and young people may experience as a result. In schools, increasing the understanding of perfectionism among teachers is a useful way of supporting student wellbeing.

• Mental health
• Young people
• Perfectionism

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Perfectionism Might Be Hurting You. Here’s How to Change Your Relationship to Achievement

Ambitious students often feel the pressure to be perfect. Here are a few tips on how to change your relationship to achievement.

Jessica A. Kent

When you’re in high school, there’s a lot of importance placed on achievement. You want to do good work, earn good grades, and learn all you can to set yourself up for your future.

Because of this, you may be a high-achieving student who sets big goals and works hard to accomplish them. However, when high achievement and ambition turn to perfectionism, it can become a roadblock to attaining your goals — and may negatively impact not only your academic success, but your personal well-being, too.

To develop a healthy connection to achievement, success, and expectations, it’s important to recognize what perfectionism looks like and to change your relationship with it. 

What is Perfectionism?

While we typically think of perfectionism as holding high standards for oneself, psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gorden Flett identified three forms of perfectionism in their 1991 paper:

• Self-oriented perfectionism is having unrealistic expectations for yourself, holding yourself to perfect standards, and being hard on yourself when you don’t meet those expectations.
• Other-oriented perfectionism is having unrealistic expectations for others, holding others to perfect standards, and being hard on others when they don’t meet those expectations.
• Socially-prescribed perfectionism is believing that others have unrealistic expectations for you, that others are holding you to perfect standards, and that others will be critical of you when you don’t meet those expectations.

Perfectionism shouldn’t be confused with striving for excellence. For many, working hard and doing their best is achievement enough, even if they don’t get a perfect score. However, for those wrestling with perfectionism, doing their best isn’t enough, and they’ll strive to be perfect at the expense of their own health and wellness.

Perfectionism is on the rise — especially in younger individuals. A study conducted between 1989 and 2016 found that levels of perfectionism in college students “increased by statistically significant amounts” and that perfectionism caused by societal pressure increased at twice the rate.  

A 2022 study of 16 to 25-year-olds found that “85.4% of participants identified having perfectionist traits that were primarily focused on academic achievement … and experienced stress that affected their physical and mental health and well-being.”

Individuals with perfectionist tendencies may have historically been rewarded for good work, and are conditioned to seek that out again. They may believe they must be perfect to please their parents or earn their family’s respect — one study found that “the perception of high parental expectations, or the perception of high parental criticism” is a contributor to perfectionism. 

They may have a fear of failure and believe that they can avoid it by being perfect. Or they may need to meet unrealistic expectations in a world of curated, seemingly “perfect” lives on social media. But whatever the cause, perfectionism isn’t a healthy way to approach the world.

How to Identify Perfectionism

Perfectionism exhibits itself through a number of behaviors and personality traits that tend to be more extreme than those exhibited by a typical high-achiever. Some of the ways perfectionism shows up in everyday life include:

Unrealistic standards

Being human inherently means being imperfect. While it’s good to strive for your best in many situations, perfectionism says that everything you do has to be perfect — and anything less than that is unacceptable.

Being highly self-critical

For those with perfectionist traits, there’s no such thing as just doing “good enough.” If they don’t get an A+ on the paper, win the game, or even pick up a new skill perfectly on the first try, they’re highly critical of their perceived failure.

A focus on outcomes and results

Focusing only on achieving perfect results means that perfectionists not only miss out on learning and growing through the process, but they have a hard time being proud of their accomplishment.

Fear of failure

While failure is a part of life and a way to learn and grow, failing can be terrifying for many. Perfectionism says that if you’re not perfect, you’ve failed — and failure may result in negative relationships, friends thinking less of you, or losing out on opportunities.

Overworkin g — to the detriment of wellbeing

Individuals struggling with perfectionism often overwork themselves to meet their high expectations. They may stay up all night to edit an essay, work out multiple times a day to be in peak physical shape for the big game, or spend money they don’t have on a gift to impress a friend.

Procrastination

Those with perfectionist traits also tend to procrastinate; if they can’t do something perfectly the first time, they may keep putting it off for fear of failing.

The Consequences of Perfectionism

The lie perfectionism tells you is that being perfect will help you get ahead and set you up well for the future. But striving only for perfection actually has the opposite effect. 

Here are some of the downsides and negative impacts you may experience with perfectionism:

Dissatisfaction and disappointment

Because those with perfectionist tendencies focus so much on working to make everything perfect, they are likely to experience more dissatisfaction and disappointment in their everyday lives. Constantly thinking “I’m not good enough” can steal the joy from experiences.

Negative impact on relationships

Perfectionism isn’t limited to academic achievement; wanting to be the perfect child, the perfect sibling, or the perfect friend may lead you to change your behaviors to fit that role. Alternatively, you may place such high expectations on your family and friends that you’re disappointed when they don’t meet them.

Taking more time to complete tasks

Because perfectionism and procrastination go hand-in-hand, you may be reluctant to start new projects or activities out of fear of failure. Once you do start, your efforts to make sure whatever you’re doing is perfect could result in it taking much longer than anticipated. This may lead to being rushed at the end or missing deadlines, compounding the feeling of failure.

Worry, anxiety, or depression

Perfectionism can also cause a lot of stress , worry, and anxiety because of the fear of failure. Multiple studies have found connections between perfectionism and depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders.

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How to Change Your Relationship to Perfectionism

It’s unfortunately becoming more common to struggle with perfectionism, but you don’t have to be consumed by it. Here are some steps you can take to try to overcome perfectionism and reduce your dependency on perfect outcomes.

1. Realign or reframe expectations

The old adage “perfect is the enemy of good” speaks to the fact that trying to be perfect will actually prohibit you from doing good, meaningful, and impactful work. Start to realign or reframe your expectations around what good achievement means, because perfection is unachievable. 

Going out of your comfort zone can help with this process, showing you that growth can often happen when you least expect it.

2. Ask others to help reset expectations

Individuals may try to be perfect because they don’t want to let others down or lose their respect or love. Reach out to friends and family to ask them to help you reset those expectations, and to help you see that if you aren’t perfect, you’ll still be loved and cared for.

As you move forward in your schooling and into your college career, you’ll find that those in your life want you not just to do your best, but be your best — and will be there to support you along the way. Communicating with your professors in college is one way to help them understand how best to help you.

3. Gain perspective on what matters

When you’re in high school, every grade and achievement may seem incredibly important for your future. But gaining perspective will help you realize that being perfect will not necessarily get you ahead. Doing your best is what counts — and embracing failure and learning from it will take you much further than being perfect.

If social media is exacerbating feelings of inadequacy, try taking a break .

4. Practice self-compassion

Practicing mindfulness and self-compassion can help ease feelings of failure. Counteract the high self-criticism that comes with perfectionism by encouraging and supporting yourself. One way to do that is to say to yourself what you’d say to others in the same situation. 

Managing your stress is also important to practicing these behaviors and help to support your overall wellbeing.  

5. Seek professional help

It may be easy to read this advice, but if you’re struggling with perfectionism to the extent that it’s impacting your physical and mental health, you should seek out a therapist or other professional who can help you change your behaviors and thinking.

Overcoming Perfectionism

While there is a lot of importance placed on achievement at this stage in your life, you don’t have to be held back by perfectionism. Recognizing the signs of perfectionism, taking steps to reassess your expectations for yourself and others, and seeking help when you need it are the first steps towards overcoming perfectionism. 

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About the Author

Jessica A. Kent is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. and a Harvard Extension School alum. Her digital marketing content has been featured on Fast Company, Forbes, Nasdaq, and other industry websites; her essays and short stories have been featured in North American Review, Emerson Review, Writer’s Bone, and others.

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When high standards become unrelenting, they can lead to perfectionism and to behaviors that actually get in the way of achieving your goals and enjoying your Harvard journey. 

Unrelenting Standards in High Achieving Students 

Perfectionism is the over-application of high standards related to excellence. In today’s society, there are many misconceptions about perfectionism and its relationship with excellence, many of which you may have encountered on your journey to Harvard. You might have been rewarded by parents and teachers, for instance, for setting extremely high standards for yourself and working relentlessly to achieve them, even at the expense of your wellbeing. This external reinforcement of unrealistic standards of perfection, although often well-intentioned (they want you to do well and achieve great things!), can easily translate into an unhealthy obsession with achievement that carries over to college. 

At Harvard, however, the tough demands of coursework and high level of achievement amongst your peers can often mean that the strategies that made you successful in high school are no longer sustainable. The very relentlessness of perfectionism that once led to praise can cause students to miss deadlines, obsess over minute details of assignments, and sacrifice their wellness. Perfectionists often struggle to moderate their behaviors not because they enjoy the feeling of struggling to meet high standards, but because they believe that they must continue to be perfect to be successful and accepted by others. In fact, the opposite is often true: students who learn to develop realistic (not low!) standards for themselves often see the quality of their work and relationships improve. 

Scholars have identified three types of perfectionism:

Self-oriented

Other-oriented, socially-prescribed.

No matter what kind of perfectionist beliefs you hold, there are some tell-tale behaviors that accompany these beliefs. Often, they go unnoticed by students for a variety of reasons that might vary from inaccurately naming the behavior (“I wasn’t excessively checking my p-set! I was just being thorough!”) to seeing them as actually counter-indicating perfectionism (“A real perfectionist wouldn’t procrastinate! They’d be on time with everything!”). 

Behaviors often rooted in perfectionism:

Procrastinating

Excessive checking

Reassurance seeking

Overcompensating

Repeating and correcting

Excessive organizing and list-making

Difficulty making decisions

Giving up too soon

Not knowing when to stop

Failure to delegate

Managing these behaviors can be draining and unpleasant, preventing you from enjoying your education.  At the ARC, we want to support students’ desire to achieve, while also helping them find the balance they need to be healthy, fulfilled learners. Often, this means finding individualized strategies for combatting your perfectionistic behaviors. Perfectionists may be hesitant to seek support for their struggles because they fear letting go of the achievements that are so important to their identity, but often students find they are more successful—and much happier—when they start to move away from destructive, perfectionistic self-talk.  Schedule a meeting with an Academic Coach to discuss how small behavioral shifts can help you develop the grace, positive self-talk, and resilience needed to navigate academic pressures effectively!

Schedule an Appointment

If you would like to work on overcoming perfectionism in the company of others, consider attending the workshop series on  Overcoming Perfectionism through Self-Compassion  regularly offered by  Harvard’s Counseling and Mental Health Services  (CAMHS).

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The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research

• Brian Swider,
• Dana Harari,
• Amy P. Breidenthal,
• Laurens Bujold Steed

At what point does an all-or-nothing mindset hurt your career?

Extensive research has found the psychology of perfectionism to be rather complex. Yes, perfectionists strive to produce flawless work, and they also have higher levels of motivation and conscientiousness than non-perfectionists. However, they are also more likely to set inflexible and excessively high standards, to evaluate their behavior overly critically, to hold an all-or-nothing mindset about their performance. So while certain aspects of perfectionism might be beneficial in the workplace, perfectionistic tendencies can also clearly impair employees at work. Researchers combed through four decades of study on perfectionism to answer: Are perfectionists better performers at work? Taken as a whole, their results indicate that perfectionism is a much bigger weakness than many job applicants and interviewers probably assume.

“What is your biggest weakness?”

• BS Brian Swider is an assistant professor at the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. His research focuses on how and why employees enter and exit organizations.
• DH Dana Harari is a Ph.D candidate at the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research investigates how employees’ behavior and activities outside of work impact their well-being, relationships, and performance at work.
• AB Amy P. Breidenthal is a Ph.D. candidate at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research investigates employee creativity, social networks, and perfectionism.
• LS Laurens Bujold Steed is an assistant professor at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. Her research explores employee well-being and the role of pay at work.

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Combatting perfectionism in the chemistry classroom

By Louise Hussein 2020-10-06T07:34:00+01:00

How to steer perfectionism in the classroom in positive ways

Source: © Mitch Blunt/Ikon Images

Perfectionism can sometimes hinder students’ performance, but there are ways you can help

Perfectionism is a common issue in the chemistry classroom for teachers and pupils. It can manifest in a number of ways and typically takes three forms: self-orientated (‘I must do this right’), other-orientated (‘they must do this right’), and socially-prescribed (‘it is expected of me to do this right’).

• Self-orientated perfectionism  is the easiest to spot: a student who rejects anything that isn’t perfect, which often leads to disappointment. Self-orientated perfectionism can also be subtler. Students who avoid – by not handing in work on time, not completing tasks, and seemingly not engaging with lessons – are often hidden perfectionists. These students hide to avoid facing the reality of imperfection.
• Other-orientated perfectionism is evident in students who quickly become frustrated during group practical work because they want their team to carry out everything correctly. They frequently ask questions and seek clarification, then return to their team to say ‘I told you so’. This type of perfectionism is common in adults too – the frustration a teacher can feel with a class who don’t get it.
• Socially-prescribed perfectionism presents in students who feel a lot of pressure from their parents or carers; they feel a poor result could lead to anger or disappointment. It is important as a teacher to recognise that this type of perfectionism can result from our relationships with students too – a student may feel they have let you down with poor performance or lack of understanding, and may behave negatively in lessons.

Turn perfectionism into a positive

Although we need to encourage students by setting high standards, these standards must be achievable. The key to combatting perfectionism is to recognise that it can also be a useful tool in learning. Negative perfectionism mainly arises when goals are unrealistically high or vague.

As a teacher, it is important to recognise the positives and negatives and encourage students, rather than saying ‘stop being a perfectionist and get on with it’. By reframing perfectionism, you can help students to apply its more positive aspects to their work.

The key to tackling negative perfectionism is to recognise events that trigger this behaviour. Being able to pre-empt such times can help in setting realistic expectations to better support students. Get to know the perfectionists in your classroom – do you notice particular stressors, for example giving presentations, doing practical work, handing in homework, giving back tests? Once you have identified the cause, or activating event, you can apply the ABCDE model.

The ABCDE model

A ctivating event – What is the root cause of the habit?

B elief – What is the unhelpful thought that the student has?

C onsequence – What will be the result if the student continues to think this way?

D isputing argument – How can we rephrase/set clearer expectations for the student?

E ffective way forward – What steps should we encourage the student to take?

For example: (A) a student gets an unexpectedly low result in a test. (B) They then believe they are ‘rubbish’ at chemistry, and ‘can’t do it’ even though they tried. (C) Their confidence drops as a result, they feel demotivated, and spend less time in future revising for tests because they believe it didn’t help last time. (D) By talking to the student, you can reassure them, putting their result in the context of their progress – perhaps it was a hard test. Highlight positive aspects of their test paper and focus on their strengths. (E) Perhaps the student would benefit from further practice, so you give them some past paper questions and mark schemes to review.

Be open with your students about this process. All too often when I return tests, I give no space for students to let out their negative feelings. But space to catastrophise and verbalise feelings can be a very useful process to help you understand your students better and help them to recognise how they could modify their behaviour or thoughts, and enable you to suggest effective ways forward.

Reconsider the way you give feedback

Once you have identified unhelpful thinking errors, you can support your students to adapt through rephrasing. I recently trialled gradeless marking in tests. Such tests are not entirely gradeless, but I have changed the focus of my marking. Rather than returning tests with a simple percentage on the top, I first return tests with dedicated improvement and reflection time (DIRT) sheets to help point students in the right direction to improve their work. Vital to this strategy are the ‘Challenge yourself’ questions below. These send the message that there is always room to learn and improve, even if you achieved 100%. If you only run through mark schemes, more work is given to the students who underachieved, which reinforces the negatives.

Source: Louise Hussein

An example of a DIRT sheet for balancing chemical equations

In addition, rather than reporting percentages and medians, I encourage my students to compare themselves with themselves, by noting at the top of their work whether they are ‘on track’, ‘working below my target’ or ‘working above my target’. This system has changed the way my students respond to feedback, and has reduced the number of ‘justifications’ I get (I didn’t revise because …). It makes the atmosphere more purposeful and less judgemental.

Encouraging students to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) targets is crucial to get them to make the most of their time, particularly when it comes to revision. This year I dedicated a whole lesson to showing my exam classes what I actually expect them to do when they revise. All too often a student’s idea of revision is very different to mine. By taking time to lay out SMART strategies you can avoid students overworking themselves or procrastinating.

None of the above strategies will work overnight. The tenacious attitudes of students can be difficult to shift, but by gradually working through these techniques, you too will hopefully see a big improvement in your students’ motivation.

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Perfectionism in Academic Settings

• First Online: 01 January 2015

Cite this chapter

• Kenneth G. Rice 3 ,
• Clarissa M. E. Richardson 4 &
• Merideth E. Ray 3  

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In this chapter, we build a model supporting a multivalenced view of perfectionism in academic settings. Our model is derived from several other conceptual and empirical approaches for understanding the effects that personality factors have on academic outcomes. We argue that adaptive and maladaptive strands of perfectionism are two sides of the same (high) standards coin. The sides differ in the effects that self-critical aspects of perfectionism can have on outcomes relevant to students in academic settings. We explain how this inherently performance-based construct affects academic outcomes in positive and negative ways, but we only briefly acknowledge other ways that perfectionism becomes intertwined with personal and interpersonal issues in academic settings, such as in the context of relationships and social support, athletics, health, and psychological well-being. Selected findings in this literature are organized according to a dominant two-factor model of perfectionism and to the ways perfectionism has been analyzed. Our focus is primarily on students in primary, secondary, and postsecondary academic settings, but we later note the multilevel structure of those settings and the limited attention in the literature paid to other key players in those contexts (e.g., teachers, professors, and others). Other limitations also will be addressed, including (a) the overreliance on self-report, (b) the dimensional structure of perfectionism that is typically embraced in measurement and analysis but rarely tested, (c) too few longitudinal studies (and related measurement challenges) and too many cross-sectional ones, and (d) relatively few studies that examine important demographic (e.g., sex, race/ethnicity, national origin) and cultural (e.g., acculturation, collectivism, individualism) concomitants of perfectionism. Proposed remedies include collaborative multisite studies with stakeholders as integral research-to-practice team members and the implementation of creative research design and statistical techniques.

The authors are grateful to Jana Mohammad Al-Nahhas, Angela Montfort, and Marieke van Nuenen for their assistance with this chapter.

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Rice, K., Richardson, C., Ray, M. (2016). Perfectionism in Academic Settings. In: Sirois, F., Molnar, D. (eds) Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18582-8_11

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Perfectionism

A look at the consequences of perfectionism, the pursuit of being perfect upsets the harmony of being human.

Posted April 12, 2021 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

• The closest thing to perfection is being present, but the perfectionist is never present.
• Perfectionism is just a construct of the mind with no basis in reality.
• Those beleaguered by the need to be perfect usually absorbed early-life messages that they wereen't good enough.
• Perfectionism is a mask for insecurity.

The desire to be perfect traps and burdens many people and imprisons them with unrelenting stress , often creating havoc in their lives. This is a very curious thing, given that the same people believe that seeking perfection is desirable. Like many operating beliefs and assumptions, when we take a deeper look, they may appear nonsensical.

Perfection suggests a state of flawlessness, without any defects. To be perfect implies a condition whereby your action or performance attains a level of excellence that cannot be exceeded. Seeking perfection at a particular task might be achievable, and certainly a student can strive to attain a perfect grade, or you can try to accomplish a perfect execution of something. You can hope to bowl 300 or produce a perfect report at work. You certainly hope your surgeon does a perfect job on your operation.

Yet, the goal of being perfect in life is altogether a different story. A machine or electronic device may operate perfectly—at least for a while. Yet, over time it will begin to wear down and require repair. Humans, however, were never intended to be perfect. That’s part of the definition of being human. Consider the expression, “I’m just human.”

In our culture, we move relentlessly toward greater emphasis on achievement, productivity and goal attainment. We tend to measure our lives in terms of success and achievement and lose perspective on what it may mean to live well. This tendency ruptures any sense of meaning or balance in our lives. We seem to lose the capacity for wonder and awe .

Could you imagine looking at a magnificent rainbow and complaining that the width of one color was narrower than another? Not only would that be ridiculous, we’d also be ruining the splendor of the moment. And yet that is exactly what we do when we judge ourselves for our imperfections.

In truth, the notions of perfect or imperfect are simply constructs of mind and have no actual basis other than thought has created them. The notion of perfection has existed since ancient Greece, but in its more modern incarnation, it is a construct of Newton’s mechanics. It has no place, however, in a participatory worldview.

Ironically, if someone ever could achieve the implausible state of perfection, it’s likely that very few people would tolerate him or her. For the perfect individual would be a constant reminder to all others of their own shortcomings. Not to mention that they probably wouldn’t be much fun to be with. Who would really tolerate, let alone enjoy, being with someone who was inhumanely perfect?

When I speak on the subject—the problem with perfectionism—people often protest that they are simply striving for excellence and may ask what is wrong with trying to improve. My response is, there’s no problem with that at all, if it’s done with balance. But must you always be striving to improve? If so, you are forever climbing the ladder reaching to the rung above you. You never reach your goal, there are always more rungs. So you’ll be happy when?

The paradox here is that to perpetually strive suggests that you may not be at peace, and that actually impedes your forward progress. In other words, the balance that is derived from pausing from the inexorable improvement permits intuitive growth. When we experience being present in the moment, our personal evolution may vault forward. However, if we are ceaselessly pushing ourselves forward, we may actually impinge the very progress we seek. To be the “best you can be,” requires that you free yourself from being the subject of your onerous demands.

A mask for insecurity

I have often counseled people who were beleaguered by their need to be perfect. I have come to learn that their pursuit of perfection is really a disguise for insecurity. It becomes a statement that I’m not good enough just as I am . When we do that, we judge ourselves.

Usually we strive toward being perfect to compensate for a sense of inadequacy. People who want to be perfect usually have an exaggerated sense of their own shortcomings. They typically received messages earlier in life that they weren’t good enough. So they decided that only by being perfect would they be beyond reproach.

With such an affliction we might look at perfectionism as a compensation for earlier life experiences –wave collapses—that corrupted someone’s well-being and self-esteem . As a compensatory response, the drive toward perfection is erroneously sought as a solution. Perfectionists tend to think that other people are somehow better or superior to them, so they need to be without flaw just to catch up. This is a terribly damaging myth.

Individuals who seek perfection are more sensitive to the judgments of others. In fact, these judgments are most often imagined. Everyone has an opinion, but elevating someone else’s opinion to the status of being a judgment is really silly. After all, someone else can’t really judge you unless you confer upon him or her, the power of being a judge.

The only perfection is in being present, yet the perfectionist is never present

The closest thing to perfection is in the ability to be fully present. Without any distracting thoughts measuring or grading ourselves, we’re free to really be in the moment. It’s in that moment that we’re truly alive. Yet, the perfectionist isn’t typically present, as they’re either busy critiquing the past and replaying their every decision or worrying about their future decisions. So, you see, the perfectionist is never really present. Isn’t that ironic?

The pursuit of perfection limits our ability to be present and literally robs us of the vitality of life. It is unachievable, unimaginable and frankly undesirable, so why pursue it? Your time would be far better spent in delving into how to transcend the insecurity that catalyzed the desire for perfection in the first place.

For more, listen to Mel's recent podcast, The Problem with Perfection

Mel Schwartz, L.C.S.W., is a psychotherapist and marriage counselor who works toward creating resilient relationships and fostering authentic communication. His website is Melschwartz.com.

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Perfectionism in College Students: The Mental Health Consequences of Trying to Be Perfect

Wouldn’t it be nice to be the top athlete, the best student, the most attractive person in the room, the most valuable employee—in a word, perfect? But the irony of perfection is that it’s unattainable. And striving to achieve it can be detrimental to health and happiness. That’s why perfectionism in college students is so closely linked to depression and anxiety.

It’s not a coincidence that as mental health issues among young adults have increased, so has perfectionism. According to a study by the American Psychological Association (APA), rates of perfectionism among college students have been rising over the past three decades. “Increases in perfectionism have the potential to explain some of the increase in the prevalence of psychopathology,” wrote the APA researchers Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill. “Perfectionism is a core vulnerability to a variety of disorders, symptoms, and syndromes.” 

What Is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism is not simply a matter of having high standards. Rather, it has three elements: First, someone holds standards that are impossibly high. Second, they judge their own efforts (and other people’s) with fierce criticism. And third, they base their sense of worth on whether or not those standards are met. They dismiss their achievements and focus only on their flaws.

Perfectionism in college students is sometimes thought of as a positive trait, if it drives them to do well. But Curran asserts that perfectionism is always a problem. He states that perfectionist symptoms should not be confused with healthy traits like conscientiousness, perseverance, and diligence. It is never healthy to link one’s sense of self-worth to the unattainable goal of perfection.

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The Link Between Perfectionism and Mental Health Issues

Is perfectionism a disorder? No. Rather, it is a tendency that underlies numerous mental health disorders. As the researchers state in the APA study , “Although perfectionists have an excessive need for others’ approval, they feel socially disconnected and such alienation renders them susceptible to profound psychological turmoil.”

Perfectionism and mental health are related in the sense that perfectionism plays a role in the development and continuation of many serious mental health conditions. These include:

• Social anxiety
• High-functioning anxiety
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Eating disorders
• Body dysmorphic disorder
• Suicidal ideation

Consequently, recognizing and addressing the connection between perfectionism, anxiety and depression and other conditions is an important part of the recovery process. 

Know the Facts

Perfectionism in college students motivated by social and family expectations increased by 33% from 1989 to 2016.

Types of Perfectionism 

Experts distinguish between three different types of perfectionism:

Self-Oriented Perfectionism

“I demand nothing less than perfection of myself.”

A self-oriented perfectionist strives to meet unrealistically high standards that they have set for themselves. This form of perfectionism is strongly related to inherited personality traits. Yes, it can contribute to high achievement and success. However, it is also associated with high levels of stress , along with the negative physical and mental health effects that accompany chronic stress.

Socially Prescribed Perfectionism

“My family expects me to be perfect.”

This type of perfectionist strives to meet unrealistically high standards that they feel others expect of them. This form of perfectionism is driven by family and cultural values and assumptions. Perfectionism in college students is often particularly high when a student is the first person in their family to attend college. According to the APA study, the number of young adults with socially prescribed perfectionism showed the largest increase among the three types. It went up by 33 percent between 1989 and 2016. Socially prescribed perfectionism is the form most closely linked with serious mental health disorders. The study’s authors point to a parallel increase in anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among young people over the same time frame.

Perfectionism Imposed on Others 

“The people who matter to me should never let me down.”

This type of perfectionist holds the people around them to extremely high standards. They tend to blame and criticize friends, family, or colleagues who fall short of their expectations. Hence, their perfectionism interferes with relationships and creates issues such as mistrust, conflict, and loneliness. It is also a component of narcissism . This form of perfectionism increased by 16 percent over the past three decades, according to the study.

The findings indicate that recent generations of young people perceive that others are more demanding of them, are more demanding of others, and are more demanding of themselves.

Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill APA researchers

Causes of Perfectionism in College Students

There is no simple answer to the question, “Why am I a perfectionist?” The “need to be perfect disorder” arises from a variety of pathways, and is unique to every individual. The following factors impact the likelihood of developing perfectionism and mental health issues related to perfectionism.

Biological factors

There is a moderate genetic component to perfectionism, more pronounced in girls than in boys. Studies of twins suggest that genetics account for between 25 and 40 percent of perfectionism. That correlation likely reflects small effects contributed by many different genes, rather than a “perfectionism gene.” Certain personality traits and disorders linked with perfectionism are also inheritable. These include low tolerance of distress, anxiety, and depression.

Relational factors

The quality of a child’s relationships with their primary caregivers early in life can set the stage for the development of perfectionism. If a child’s needs for belonging and self-esteem are not met—due to abuse, neglect, or uncontrollable circumstances—they may unconsciously feel they have to be perfect to get the love and approval they crave. Even without trauma, a parent’s rigidly high expectations and perceived criticism may become internalized in the form of perfectionism.

Cultural factors

A child absorbs cultural messages about standards and values from society at large. These days, that includes the pervasive influence of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. But the study’s authors point to broader cultural influences as well. They cite the competitive individualism and market-oriented economies that have dominated Western societies over the past several decades. Those trends also underlie the rise of a more anxious and controlling parenting style, which can contribute to a child’s perfectionist tendencies. 

Cognitive factors

Humans have evolved to optimize our chances of survival. That means all of us are naturally inclined to take mental shortcuts that favor detecting and avoiding threats. And sometimes we make assumptions about potential threats that are not accurate. These cognitive distortions tend to be especially pronounced for someone with a history of trauma. That can produce the cognitive distortions that are the hallmark of perfectionism. They include catastrophic thinking, selective attention to the negative, and all-or-nothing thinking.

Learned behaviors 

Having high standards is often rewarded with positive attention, reinforcing perfectionistic behavior. Feeling criticized for a mistake, on the other hand, feels like punishment. That’s why perfectionism in college students often centers around getting good grades or, on the other hand, being terrified of a low or failing grade. Perfectionistic behaviors reinforce themselves and make it difficult for a perfectionist to give them up. 

Symptoms of a Perfectionist

Perfectionism can show up very differently from individual to individual, depending upon the above factors. Perfectionist symptoms include behaviors that fall generally into two categories: those that help the perfectionist maintain their high standards and those that help them avoid situations that remind them of their need to be perfect. 

Examples of perfectionism range from a rigid need for control to excessive anger, depression, and suicidality. Perfectionists may spend needless amounts of time on a term paper or work project, or they may avoid challenging situations completely. Moreover, a person may be a perfectionist in some situations but not in others. For example, perfectionism in college students typically focuses on academic and athletic achievements. 

Some areas of life in which young adults are most commonly affected by perfectionism are:

• Academic perfectionism
• Work performance
• Neatness, cleanliness, and organization
• Food choices
• Physical appearance
• Health and grooming

5 Ways to Be Okay with Being Good Enough

• Check your beliefs. Rigidly held beliefs underlie the behaviors of many perfectionists. But they may not always be true. Awareness is the first step in loosening their grip. First, notice what areas of your life are affected by perfectionism. Then take some time to examine what beliefs drive those perfectionist behaviors. 
• Experiment with relaxing your standards.  Even if a belief is generally true, it may not require 100 percent adherence. Conduct your own experiments to investigate the true consequences of relaxing your standards. Try doing things “well enough” rather than perfectly. Is the result significantly different?  
• Question what you’re afraid of. What bad thing might happen if you weren’t “perfect”? Sure, the worst-case scenario might result. But how likely is it really? Consider the costs of constantly striving to avoid that scenario. Are the benefits of your perfectionistic behavior outweighing the negatives?
• Aim for efficiency instead of perfection.  What is the right amount of effort to expend to achieve the desired result? Too much effort can backfire by slowing you down, exhausting you, and interfering with your relationships. Too little effort can keep you from achieving what you want to achieve. Again, you will need to experiment to find the sweet spot that is right for you and your circumstances.
• Neutralize your inner critic with self-compassion . Above all, be kind to yourself. A study with adolescents found that the perfectionist students who had more self-compassion were less likely to experience depression . Self-compassion can help in recovering from perfectionism. You don’t have to shake these habits and beliefs all at once. Take small steps, and get support from people you trust or from a professional.

Perfectionism Treatment at Newport Institute

Newport Institute’s philosophy of care addresses both symptoms of perfectionism and mental health issues underlying perfectionist tendencies. Through addressing childhood trauma, family expectations, and cultural factors, young adults unpack their perfectionism. And they learn to identify and shift the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that keep them locked in a cycle of perfectionism. Contact us today to learn more about our approach to care and our specialized treatment for young adults.

Psychol Bull. 2019 Apr;145(4): 410–429.

J Clin Psychol. 2017 Oct;73(10): 1301–1326.

Psychiatry Res. 2015 Dec 30;230(3): 932–9.

Hewitt, P.L. (2017). Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment . The Guilford Press.

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Perfectionism in Writing: 5 Ways to Help Students Beat Writer’s Block

Demme Learning · March 15, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Though lots of stumbling blocks litter the road to writing success, perfectionism —the personal pressure to get it right the first time—is a challenge that many struggling writers face. For them, a blank page isn’t a canvas of unlimited possibility, but rather a source of extreme anxiety. In this blog, we’re taking a deeper look at the connection between perfectionism and writer’s block and providing some tips to help students let go of perfectionism in writing.

Perfectionism and Writer’s Block

Many students loathe the writing process. They want to write a masterful composition without having to undergo the nuisance of proofreading, editing, and revising. In their eyes, the first draft has to be perfect, and they put a lot of pressure on themselves to make it happen. 

Other students strongly believe that nothing they put on paper will be good enough, so they don’t write at all. They’re debilitated by their own anxiety about producing the perfect piece of writing. Author Anna Quindlen describes the problem this way: “People have writer’s block not because they can’t write, but because they despair of writing eloquently.” 

However perfectionism presents itself, it’s a major obstacle that makes writer’s block difficult to overcome. That said, there are some things you can do to help your students overcome perfectionism in writing.

5 Tips to Help Students Overcome Perfectionism in Writing

Don’t let perfectionism hold your students back from writing success. Try using these five tips to reduce their anxiety and beat writer’s block.

1. Encourage Them to Start Small

Think about how you bake a birthday cake. It doesn’t just pop out of the oven ready to serve, right? You start with a plain cake and build from there, adding frosting flourishes, colorful sprinkles, and candles until it’s finally complete. 

Writing is a lot like baking a cake, and it’s just as unrealistic for your student to expect a brilliant composition to take form in just one step. As with the cake, it helps to start with a basic foundation—a few plain sentences—that can be embellished later on.

For example, a student can start with something like this:

I am on a baseball team. Yesterday we played our best game. I got two runs. Gabriel scored the winning run. It was a close game. Our coach took us out for pizza. 

Then, they can revise their paragraph by adding descriptive details and sentence variety:

I am on the Red Rockets baseball team with my friend Gabriel. Yesterday, we played our best game of the season against the Mud Ducks. In the bottom of the sixth, I hammered the ball and drove in two runs to tie up the score. During the last inning, Gabriel slid into home plate and scored the winning run. What a close game! Afterwards, Coach Dan took the whole team to Sammy’s Pizza to celebrate our victory.

2. Give Them Time to Practice

Writing, like any skill, requires practice. If your student is a perfectionistic writer, they likely don’t feel confident in their abilities. The only way to help them increase their writing skills and overcome their perfectionism is to provide frequent, low-risk opportunities to practice.

Freewriting is a great activity to flex student’s writing muscles and ease the grip of writer’s block. Here’s how it works:

• Set a timer for an appropriate amount of time, such as five minutes.
• Tell students to write about whatever they want to for the full amount of time.
• They must write continuously without stopping to think or make edits. If they get stuck, they can write something like “I’m not sure what to write” until inspiration strikes.
• When the timer goes off, have your student stop writing and read what they produced.

Additionally, try using writing prompts to help your students become less intimidated by a blank page. An interesting or unusual photo, with or without accompanying text, can also get their writing wheels turning.

3. Communicate Expectations and Modify As Needed

Sometimes, perfectionists are afraid to start writing simply because they don’t know how long their composition should be, or they’re overwhelmed by length requirements. When you limit your student’s writing to a manageable length, whether that’s five-to-six sentences or several pages, it makes the task feel less open-ended and stressful.

However, if your student is anxious about how much they are expected to write regardless, try breaking up the assignment into smaller chunks . Simply ask them to write a certain amount today, another chunk tomorrow, and then finish the full draft on the next day.

4. Teach Them to Embrace the “Sloppy Copy”

Creativity is a messy ordeal, and writing is a creative endeavor. So, why do students think it’s fine to make a mess when painting or working with clay but not when writing?

Like any creative process, the writing process isn’t always neat, tidy, and measured—and it certainly isn’t perfect. Assure your students that it’s okay if their thoughts spill out on the page in a jumble at first. And although it may be tempting to correct everything as they write, encourage them to simply write without scrutinizing every word, phrase, and sentence. A sloppy copy is meant to be sloppy, after all! They can focus on fine-tuning their first draft during the revision process.

As American humorist James Thurber once said, “Don’t get it right, just get it written.”

5. Promote Progress Over Perfection

While revision is the time for students to make improvements to their writing, they still shouldn’t expect perfection. Before having your students reevaluate their sloppy copy, be sure to communicate to them that the goal of revising is to refine their writing, not perfect it. Any successful writer will agree that there is no such thing as perfection when it comes to revision–only progress.

Additionally, don’t forget to show your enthusiasm when your student finishes revising an assignment. Point out at least three things that you’re proud of in their writing and just one thing that they can improve upon for next time. This will help promote a growth mindset .

Above all, congratulate them for overcoming their writer’s block. Success breeds more success, and when your students feel like they were successful (even if they weren’t perfect), they’ll be less reluctant to write in the future.

Enjoying (or at least tolerating) the messy writing process is one of the toughest hurdles for students who experience perfectionism in writing. It certainly isn’t easy, but it is possible, as they learn to let go of the pressures that weigh them down.

Are you looking for an engaging writing curriculum to help your students kick perfectionism to the curb? With WriteShop, students learn to look at their writing objectively with lots of room for trial and error.

Explore our website to learn more about the WriteShop program and find the right starting point for your students!

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Perfectionism in Gifted Students

Many believe perfectionism is a typical behavior for high-achieving students in general; however, it becomes concerning when it adversely affects a child’s well-being. Taking a look at perfectionism in gifted students, we see it manifest as competitive tendencies, prioritizing achievement over socialization, and avoiding activities perceived as potential failures. It often relates to self-esteem issues arising from both internal and external expectations of constant giftedness in every subject. 

While the debate on positive and negative aspects of perfectionism persists, it’s important to note the intense pressure gifted students face due to their identification as “the smart students” if they are not in a learning environment specifically designed to support their development, such as Davidson Academy. 

Once educators and parents understand the signs of this characteristic, how to support gifted students in an academic setting, and the benefits of a school tailored to these children, there will be greater opportunities for fostering a positive culture that nurtures the unique needs of gifted students.

Signs of Perfectionism in Gifted Students

Educators need to understand what perfectionism is and how to spot it in their classrooms. Here are key identifiers if a gifted student is struggling with this characteristic:

• How they respond to competition (i.e., “I have to be the best!”)
• How they respond to compliments (i.e., “Thanks, I guess, but I could’ve done so much better.”)
• Negative self-talk and low self-esteem
• Fear or anxiety around assignments that have already been turned in
• Sensitivity to criticism while being overly critical of themselves
• Procrastination (i.e., trouble starting an assignment)
• Intense attention to detail (i.e., spending too much time to answer the first few questions on an exam)

Of course, not every gifted student who exhibits perfectionism will show all of these signs. However, if you notice any of these habits occurring regularly, it’s worth starting a conversation with the individual to see how they’re feeling and how you might be able to support them.

Noticing certain patterns of perfectionism in gifted students can prevent underachievement . For example, if a student is worried their science project isn’t good enough, they will not submit the work because it isn’t perfect. This could lead to poor or failing grades. 

Now that you’re aware of the most common signs of perfectionism in gifted students, let us focus on how we can help these individuals thrive while learning.

How to Support Gifted Students with Perfectionism in the Classroom

As noted in the key indicators, perfectionism often stems from poor self-esteem. Mistakes are viewed as reflections of personal flaws, creating a fear of not being accepted. While encouraging gifted students to ease their concerns about outcomes is vital to their well-being and academic success, teachers may find it challenging to address the underlying anxiety.

Help Them Change Their Internal Dialogue

When a gifted student’s perfectionism is no longer serving as a motivator, but as a detriment to their education, they’re likely feeling bogged down by stress, anxiety, frustration, and sadness. You have the opportunity to teach them how to transform a negative thought into a positive one. After all, their worth extends beyond grades and performance alone. Here’s an example scenario: If a student is placing unnecessary pressure on themselves to exceed expectations (i.e., ”I have to get this essay perfectly the first time or else”), you can help them shift their mindset to something that reinforces their knowledge and self-confidence (i.e., “I know the material and am writing this essay to the best of my ability.”).

Make Sure They Are in the Right Learning Environment

If you are a staff member or educator in a traditional school setting that does not have a specific program for gifted students, guide them to one that does. Institutions like Davidson Academy offer specific curricula built around the gifted student’s abilities and interests instead of their age. Once you understand the student’s general academic motivations and shortcomings in their current classroom, consider meeting with them and their parents to discuss alternative schools. Their parents may be unaware of their child’s perfectionism impacting their education as well as where else they could go. 

Learn more about how to choose the right school for your gifted child.

Staff and educators in a school for gifted students, on the other hand, should be on the lookout for whether or not individuals are placed in the correct class. Again, it’s important to make sure their skill level is what determines their placement instead of their age. This ensures that gifted students are positively challenged by classwork.

Benefits of the Davidson Academy

The Davidson Academy prioritizes the social and emotional well-being of students through a comprehensive approach integrated into our curriculum. We offer regular one-on-one check-ins with students as well as mindfulness and stress relief techniques that can be used in the classroom to help curb perfectionism. 

In addition to offering social and emotional support services, our institution groups gifted students by ability rather than age. This helps them thrive in the classroom. Rather than feeling bored or isolated, they can feel properly challenged and work with like-minded individuals. 

Our classroom sizes are small—up to 10 students on average per faculty member—to build a sense of community. This has been shown to boost participation, confidence, teacher-student engagement, and student-to-student relationships. 

Young Scholars Program

Parents may also want to consider the Young Scholars program. The program is free to profoundly gifted students and their families and gives them the opportunity to connect and engage in a community that understands their needs. Once accepted, parents and students have access to a range of benefits and family services to support them.

In Conclusion

Recognizing and addressing perfectionism in gifted students is important in preventing underachievement, ensuring their academic success, and building their self-confidence. By fostering a positive culture that nurtures the unique needs of gifted students as well as understands the signs of perfectionism, we can ensure gifted students thrive emotionally and academically.

• Types of Challenges Gifted Students Face
• Helping Gifted Students Cope with Perfectionism ( Davidson Gifted Blog )
• Perfectionism and the Gifted ( American Psychological Associatio n)

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Self-critical perfectionism gnaws on students' well-being already in lower secondary school, says study

by University of Eastern Finland

Young people's perfectionism is manifested as concern over their competence and fear of making mistakes.

A new study among ninth-graders attending lower secondary school in Swedish-speaking areas of Finland identified four perfectionistic profiles with varying associations with students' psychological well-being. The study was conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland and Åbo Akademi University. The findings are published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences .

Perfectionism is characterized by high standards and striving for excellence, but it also involves concerns over one's own performance and dissatisfaction with one's achievements.

In other words, there is both a positive and a negative side to perfectionism. Different individuals, however, place different emphasis on strivings and concerns.

"We identified four distinct perfectionistic profiles: moderately concerned (relatively low strivings and relatively high concerns), perfectionists (high strivings and high concerns), ambitious (high strivings and low concerns), and non-perfectionists (low strivings and low concerns)," Doctoral Researcher Anna Kuusi of the University of Eastern Finland says.

The findings are in line with previous studies conducted among general upper secondary school and university students . The present study is the first among lower secondary school students in Finland.

"Recent years have seen an increase in both perfectionism and exhaustion among young people, so it is important to determine at what stage and in what forms these experiences emerge," Kuusi notes.

Most ninth-graders are moderately concerned—perfectionistic profiles are associated with well-being

The study showed that perfectionistic profiles are substantially stable: around 80% of the students maintained the same profile over the school year.

However, some significant transitions were observed as well: some students transitioned from moderately concerned to non-perfectionist or perfectionist, or from perfectionist to moderately concerned. The profiles and transitions were also associated with well-being.

"Although both ambitious and perfectionist students were highly engaged and had high strivings, perfectionists displayed more burnout and anxiety and depressive symptoms than ambitious students, who only displayed a little of these. Both of these profiles, i.e., ambitious and perfectionist, which are characterized by high concerns, were associated with poorer well-being."

The moderately concerned profile was the most prevalent, and it can be thought to represent the typical ninth-grader. According to Kuusi, this is noteworthy because students with this profile also displayed relatively high emotional exhaustion as well as anxiety and depressive symptoms, compared to students with a non-perfectionist or an ambitious profile.

Transitions between profiles were also associated with well-being. A transition from moderately concerned to perfectionist was associated with higher exhaustion, whereas a transition from moderately concerned to non-perfectionist was associated with fewer anxiety and depressive symptoms .

"The findings show that it is particularly important to understand how students' self-criticism and dissatisfaction with their own achievements are linked to poorer well-being. High goals and engagement do not guarantee the well-being of a student if, at the same time, they are very concerned about their performance," Kuusi concludes.

The data used in the study constitutes part of the broader longitudinal research project Student Well-being and Learning in Future Society led by Åbo Akademi University. Ninth-grade students from lower secondary schools from different regions of Swedish-speaking areas of Finland responded to surveys conducted twice in the school year 2019–2020.

Provided by University of Eastern Finland

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Self-critical perfectionism gnaws on students' well-being already in lower secondary school

Young people's perfectionism is manifested as concern over their competence and fear of making mistakes.

A new study among ninth-graders attending lower secondary school inSwedish-speaking areas of Finland identified four perfectionistic profiles with varying associations with students' psychological well-being. The study was conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland and Åbo Akademi University.

Perfectionism is characterised by high standards and striving for excellence, but it also involves concerns over one's own performance and dissatisfaction with one's achievements. In other words, there is both a positive and a negative side to perfectionism. Different individuals, however, place different emphasis on strivings and concerns.

"We identified four distinct perfectionistic profiles: moderately concerned (relatively low strivings and relatively high concerns), perfectionists (high strivings and high concerns), ambitious (high strivings and low concerns), and non-perfectionists (low strivings and low concerns)," Doctoral Researcher Anna Kuusi of the University of Eastern Finland says.

The findings are in line with previous studies conducted among general upper secondary school and university students. The present study is the first among lower secondary school students in Finland.

"Recent years have seen an increase in both perfectionism and exhaustion among young people, so it is important to determine at what stage and in what forms these experiences emerge," Kuusi notes.

Most ninth-graders are moderately concerned -- perfectionistic profiles are associated with well-being

The study showed that perfectionistic profiles are substantially stable: around 80 per cent of the students maintained the same profile over the school year. However, some significant transitions were observed as well: some students transitioned from moderately concerned to non-perfectionist or perfectionist, or from perfectionist to moderately concerned. The profiles and transitions were also associated with well-being.

"Although both ambitious and perfectionist students were highly engaged and had high strivings, perfectionists displayed more burnout and anxiety and depressive symptoms than ambitious students, who only displayed a little of these. Both of these profiles, i.e., ambitious and perfectionist, which are characterised by high concerns, were associated with poorer well-being."

The moderately concerned profile was the most prevalent, and it can be thought to represent the typical ninth-grader. According to Kuusi, this is noteworthy because students with this profile also displayed relatively high emotional exhaustion as well as anxiety and depressive symptoms, compared to students with a non-perfectionist or an ambitious profile.

Transitions between profiles were also associated with well-being. A transition from moderately concerned to perfectionist was associated with higher exhaustion, whereas a transition from moderately concerned to non-perfectionist was associated with fewer anxiety and depressive symptoms.

"The findings show that it is particularly important to understand how students' self-criticism and dissatisfaction with their own achievements are linked to poorer well-being. High goals and engagement do not guarantee the well-being of a student if, at the same time, they are very concerned about their performance," Kuusi concludes.

The data used in the study constitutes part of the broader longitudinal research project Student Well-being and Learning in Future Society led by Åbo Akademi University. Ninth-grade students from lower secondary schools from different regions of Swedish-speaking areas of Finland responded to surveys conducted twice in the school year 2019-2020.

• Educational Psychology
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Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Eastern Finland . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Anna Kuusi, Heta Tuominen, Anna Widlund, Johan Korhonen, Markku Niemivirta. Lower secondary students' perfectionistic profiles: Stability, transitions, and connections with well-being . Learning and Individual Differences , 2024; 110: 102419 DOI: 10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102419

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In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.

By Zadie Smith

A philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy. A politics unmoored, unprincipled, which holds as its most fundamental commitment its own perpetuation. A Realpolitik that believes itself too subtle—or too pragmatic—to deal with such ethical platitudes as thou shalt not kill. Or: rape is a crime, everywhere and always. But sometimes ethical philosophy reënters the arena, as is happening right now on college campuses all over America. I understand the ethics underpinning the protests to be based on two widely recognized principles:

There is an ethical duty to express solidarity with the weak in any situation that involves oppressive power.

If the machinery of oppressive power is to be trained on the weak, then there is a duty to stop the gears by any means necessary.

The first principle sometimes takes the “weak” to mean “whoever has the least power,” and sometimes “whoever suffers most,” but most often a combination of both. The second principle, meanwhile, may be used to defend revolutionary violence, although this interpretation has just as often been repudiated by pacifistic radicals, among whom two of the most famous are, of course, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr . In the pacifist’s interpretation, the body that we must place between the gears is not that of our enemy but our own. In doing this, we may pay the ultimate price with our actual bodies, in the non-metaphorical sense. More usually, the risk is to our livelihoods, our reputations, our futures. Before these most recent campus protests began, we had an example of this kind of action in the climate movement. For several years now, many people have been protesting the economic and political machinery that perpetuates climate change, by blocking roads, throwing paint, interrupting plays, and committing many other arrestable offenses that can appear ridiculous to skeptics (or, at the very least, performative), but which in truth represent a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.

I experienced this not long ago while participating in an XR climate rally in London. When it came to the point in the proceedings where I was asked by my fellow-protesters whether I’d be willing to commit an arrestable offense—one that would likely lead to a conviction and thus make travelling to the United States difficult or even impossible—I’m ashamed to say that I declined that offer. Turns out, I could not give up my relationship with New York City for the future of the planet. I’d just about managed to stop buying plastic bottles (except when very thirsty) and was trying to fly less. But never to see New York again? What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)! Falling at the first hurdle! Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at any young person willing to put their own future into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where the limits of their own commitments lie—also whether they’ve bought a plastic bottle or booked a flight recently. A humbling inquiry.

It is difficult to look at the recent Columbia University protests in particular without being reminded of the campus protests of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, some of which happened on the very same lawns. At that time, a cynical political class was forced to observe the spectacle of its own privileged youth standing in solidarity with the weakest historical actors of the moment, a group that included, but was not restricted to, African Americans and the Vietnamese. By placing such people within their ethical zone of interest, young Americans risked both their own academic and personal futures and—in the infamous case of Kent State—their lives. I imagine that the students at Columbia—and protesters on other campuses—fully intend this echo, and, in their unequivocal demand for both a ceasefire and financial divestment from this terrible war, to a certain extent they have achieved it.

But, when I open newspapers and see students dismissing the idea that some of their fellow-students feel, at this particular moment, unsafe on campus, or arguing that such a feeling is simply not worth attending to, given the magnitude of what is occurring in Gaza, I find such sentiments cynical and unworthy of this movement. For it may well be—within the ethical zone of interest that is a campus, which was not so long ago defined as a safe space, delineated by the boundary of a generation’s ethical ideas— it may well be that a Jewish student walking past the tents, who finds herself referred to as a Zionist, and then is warned to keep her distance, is, in that moment, the weakest participant in the zone. If the concept of safety is foundational to these students’ ethical philosophy (as I take it to be), and, if the protests are committed to reinserting ethical principles into a cynical and corrupt politics, it is not right to divest from these same ethics at the very moment they come into conflict with other imperatives. The point of a foundational ethics is that it is not contingent but foundational. That is precisely its challenge to a corrupt politics.

Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them, a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands. (Those brave students who—in supporting the ethical necessity of a ceasefire—find themselves at painful odds with family, friends, faith, or community have already made this calculation.) This flexibility can also have the positive long-term political effect of allowing us to comprehend that, although our duty to the weakest is permanent, the role of “the weakest” is not an existential matter independent of time and space but, rather, a contingent situation, continually subject to change. By contrast, there is a dangerous rigidity to be found in the idea that concern for the dreadful situation of the hostages is somehow in opposition to, or incompatible with, the demand for a ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire—as well as being an ethical necessity—is also in the immediate absolute interest of the hostages, a fact that cannot be erased by tearing their posters off walls.

Part of the significance of a student protest is the ways in which it gives young people the opportunity to insist upon an ethical principle while still being, comparatively speaking, a more rational force than the supposed adults in the room, against whose crazed magical thinking they have been forced to define themselves. The equality of all human life was never a self-evident truth in racially segregated America. There was no way to “win” in Vietnam. Hamas will not be “eliminated.” The more than seven million Jewish human beings who live in the gap between the river and the sea will not simply vanish because you think that they should. All of that is just rhetoric. Words. Cathartic to chant, perhaps, but essentially meaningless. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is both a potential reality and an ethical necessity. The monstrous and brutal mass murder of more than eleven hundred people, the majority of them civilians, dozens of them children, on October 7th, has been followed by the monstrous and brutal mass murder (at the time of writing) of a reported fourteen thousand five hundred children. And many more human beings besides, but it’s impossible not to notice that the sort of people who take at face value phrases like “surgical strikes” and “controlled military operation” sometimes need to look at and/or think about dead children specifically in order to refocus their minds on reality.

To send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment? They are putting their own bodies into the machine. They deserve our support and praise. As to which postwar political arrangement any of these students may favor, and on what basis they favor it—that is all an argument for the day after a ceasefire. One state, two states, river to the sea—in my view, their views have no real weight in this particular moment, or very little weight next to the significance of their collective action, which (if I understand it correctly) is focussed on stopping the flow of money that is funding bloody murder, and calling for a ceasefire, the political euphemism that we use to mark the end of bloody murder. After a ceasefire, the criminal events of the past seven months should be tried and judged, and the infinitely difficult business of creating just, humane, and habitable political structures in the region must begin anew. Right now: ceasefire. And, as we make this demand, we might remind ourselves that a ceasefire is not, primarily, a political demand. Primarily, it is an ethical one.

But it is in the nature of the political that we cannot even attend to such ethical imperatives unless we first know the political position of whoever is speaking. (“Where do you stand on Israel/Palestine?”) In these constructed narratives, there are always a series of shibboleths, that is, phrases that can’t be said, or, conversely, phrases that must be said. Once these words or phrases have been spoken ( river to the sea, existential threat, right to defend, one state, two states, Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, terrorist ) and one’s positionality established, then and only then will the ethics of the question be attended to (or absolutely ignored). The objection may be raised at this point that I am behaving like a novelist, expressing a philosophy without a politics, or making some rarefied point about language and rhetoric while people commit bloody murder. This would normally be my own view, but, in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction.

It is in fact perhaps the most acute example in the world of the use of words to justify bloody murder, to flatten and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity to the many people who seem to believe that merely by saying something they make it so. It is no doubt a great relief to say the word “Hamas” as if it purely and solely described a terrorist entity. A great relief to say “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people” as they stand in front of you. A great relief to say “Zionist colonialist state” and accept those three words as a full and unimpeachable definition of the state of Israel, not only under the disastrous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu but at every stage of its long and complex history, and also to hear them as a perfectly sufficient description of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived in Israel or happened to find themselves born within it. It is perhaps because we know these simplifications to be impossible that we insist upon them so passionately. They are shibboleths; they describe a people, by defining them against other people—but the people being described are ourselves. The person who says “We must eliminate Hamas” says this not necessarily because she thinks this is a possible outcome on this earth but because this sentence is the shibboleth that marks her membership in the community that says that. The person who uses the word “Zionist” as if that word were an unchanged and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in 1890 or 1901 or 1920—that person does not so much bring definitive clarity to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians as they successfully and soothingly draw a line to mark their own zone of interest and where it ends. And while we all talk, carefully curating our shibboleths, presenting them to others and waiting for them to reveal themselves as with us or against us—while we do all that, bloody murder.

And now here we are, almost at the end of this little stream of words. We’ve arrived at the point at which I must state clearly “where I stand on the issue,” that is, which particular political settlement should, in my own, personal view, occur on the other side of a ceasefire. This is the point wherein—by my stating of a position—you are at once liberated into the simple pleasure of placing me firmly on one side or the other, putting me over there with those who lisp or those who don’t, with the Ephraimites, or with the people of Gilead. Yes, this is the point at which I stake my rhetorical flag in that fantastical, linguistical, conceptual, unreal place—built with words—where rapes are minimized as needs be, and the definition of genocide quibbled over, where the killing of babies is denied, and the precision of drones glorified, where histories are reconsidered or rewritten or analogized or simply ignored, and “Jew” and “colonialist” are synonymous, and “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonymous, and language is your accomplice and alibi in all of it. Language euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do. Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward. It is my view that my personal views have no more weight than an ear of corn in this particular essay. The only thing that has any weight in this particular essay is the dead. ♦

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By Andrew Marantz

By Isaac Chotiner

Covering Columbia’s Student Protests Gave Me Hope About Journalism’s Future

I t was 2:30 in the morning and our smaller newsroom up on the fifth floor of Pulitzer Hall—the esteemed Graduate School of Journalism building at Columbia University—was pulsating with the sounds of Camp Rock’s “Can’t Back Down.” Jude Taha, a Palestinian journalist in the program, was leading the charge in rallying everyone to sing it with her. The stench of bitter instant coffee wafted throughout the room. Nestled in the corner, Edward Lopez, a photo journalism student, fought valiantly against sleep. He crouched next to his camera, which was perched on a tripod to capture a perfect vantage of our Morningside campus where roughly 70 colorful tents had been sprung up by students to protest Columbia University’s investment in companies profiting from Israel’s military operations in Gaza. In my drowsy haze of half-slumber, the temptation to surrender was strong.

Then, I remembered something one of my mentors had taught me earlier in my first class at journalism school. He had said that many of us will make a career out of making up for all the mistakes those before us have made. And that in those dark moments when outrage becomes a friend, “it [will] be journalism, and your integrity, that helps you soldier on.”

In his 1970 poem, American singer and poet Gil Scott-Heron said that the revolution would never be televised. My colleagues and I bore witness to that revolution. On April 18, Columbia’s J-school students—and many other journalism students around the country—found themselves right in the middle of what had quickly become an escalating and fast-moving breaking news story . For the next two weeks, we became dedicated to documenting the mobilization of pro-Palestinian students on our campus. We were a group of writers, filmmakers, photographers, and data journalists. We worked tirelessly. As some of us rested, others took turns reporting and venturing out to document the encampment on the lawn. We made makeshift beds on the floor, huddled in lightweight sleeping bags, and were sustained by chicken-flavored ramen noodles, dates dipped in chocolate, and stale tortilla chips. But our clarity was resolute: nothing held more significance to us than accurately portraying the truth about why the students' anti-war protests were happening and the core purpose of the encampment’s demands.

It’s no coincidence that the Pulitzer building stands toweringly atop the West lawn, where a perfect view of the encampment was visible at all hours of the day. The crackdown of campus security meant limited access to outside press, and what’s more, many students in the encampment harbored valid fears that their words would be twisted, misrepresented, or worse, cherry picked for a sound bite if they had spoken to the press. So they relied on us to tell their stories—accurately and with empathy.

Read More: What America’s Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests

I watched as my colleagues Gaia Caramazza, Carla Mende, and Kira Gologorsky, student filmmakers in the documentary program, carried their equipment back and forth, tirelessly shooting the reactions of students, many of whom they had built lasting connections with.

Many of us understood the importance of dedicating hours to engaging with the campers, understanding their stories and embracing their rhythms of life—the usual meal times, music breaks, and downtime routines—and discerning the subtle cues that would foretell impending trouble.

“Please do let the world know,” a Jewish student, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said to me following a Shabbat service in the encampment. “Show them how much love exists here.” Minutes later Muslim students held their evening prayer service. On day eight, I listened as a Palestinian storyteller shared his poetry which concluded with the words: “I have never felt harmony the way I have this past week, here in this camp, united by a shared love for a group of people that many are so desperately trying to erase.”

Slowly, the encampment also became a close-knit community for many of my colleagues and me. The call to prayer reminded Caramazza of her childhood spent in Jordan. The communal food station set up in the corner closest to Butler Library felt like the physical manifestation of the Arabic saying "beity beitak" (my home is your home) for Samaa Khullar, a Palestinian journalist and colleague in the program. For me, it was playing soccer with other students in the encampment, a traditional sport that united almost every community in the Arab world regardless of their background. I came to realize that I had fostered deep care for the encampment’s affiliates. On cold nights, I worried if they had enough blankets to keep them warm. I worried about their families, some of whom were based in Gaza, and the messages they might wake up to the following morning. It was only natural for me as I immersed myself in their shoes, to reflect on the kind of support and compassion communities crave during times of grief. I approached them with an open mind and heart—one that involved dismantling my own barriers to really understand a community that was rupturing and reshaping history in real time. And as much as I thought I knew, there was so much more I didn’t—and would have remained oblivious to—had I failed to build the level of trust these protestors deserved.

My colleagues and I, many of us who had grown up abroad and reported on international communities for much of our time at Columbia, spent days discussing the significance of capturing this moment in history just as it was, and of bearing witness to the daily movements and experiences of those in the encampment. The protestors were not required to allow us into the encampment; that was not a responsibility they needed to shoulder. But just as any good, trauma-informed reporter knows, to tell a story honestly means to establish safe spaces for people to tell their stories at their own pace, a byproduct only made possible through deep listening.

What so many of my J-school colleagues and I yearned to translate to those encroaching upon our turf was that in order to really know what the movement was about, one had to engage with the students by approaching the stories that focused more on the underlying causes and motivations of the encampment, rather than arbitrary violence. For weeks on end, the encampment's residents found themselves at the intersection of both visibility and vulnerability. Students wanted to spotlight the injustices transpiring in Gaza—instead, they became the faces behind a national news story. I watched as their identities and lived experiences quickly became eclipsed by many sensationalist headlines when the reality was far from it.  

Ray (their last name has been kept private for anonymity), for instance, an artist and undergraduate student at Barnard whom I encountered a week into the encampment, dedicated her afternoons to painting portraits of Palestinians in Gaza. Her canvases pulsated with brown hues, chromes, and crimson applied through watercolor ink to stroke the urgency of the situation in Gaza. Ray had just celebrated Passover in the encampment a few days earlier and mentioned the bizarre moment she woke up to find a camera in her face, snapping pictures inside her unzipped tent: “The least they can do is ask, or try to get to know me first.”

It was impossible to have witnessed and reported on the mobilization of students so passionately dedicated to anti-war and liberation efforts, and not be affected by it. The movement demanded a response from each and every one of us of in the student body, And everyone in our newsroom felt it. Our newsroom came to multiple breaking points, but it was also our saving grace. ​​I was of two worlds as both a student and journalist. I knew just how deeply these students were hurting, but I also knew what we had to do in the spirit of journalistic responsibility. And while I have often been told that compassion stands in the way of good journalism, recent weeks have shown me that it is the lack of compassion that gets in the way of real storytelling.

Read More: My Writing Students Were Arrested at Columbia. Their Voices Have Never Been More Essential

Despite the narrative of journalism's decline or saturation with misinformation, watching my J-school colleagues’ collective conscience rise up and solemnly agree to do right by a community so stained by tragedy has reaffirmed to me that there still exists an enduring power of keeping one another safe in this industry. It was all around me when I searched for it. We knew how and where to draw the line of truth versus hysteria that is breached in journalism with little regard, even and most especially, as we reported on our own peers.

Years from now, when the next generation of young journalists are tasked with a duty this arduous (and they will), I trust that they will hold on to the hope and camaraderie that I witnessed firsthand: a spirit of journalism that models the empathy and dignity Gaza’s victims and all vulnerable communities deserved. A journalism that speaks honestly and meaningfully, with context and sensitivity. The type of journalism that does not involve reporting on a community, but rather with and for them.

The encampment is now cleared. Hamilton Hall has been “restored,” and the N.Y.P.D are now stationed at every corner of our campus. The students may not have won, in the traditional sense. But they achieved something much more powerful than that: They globalized the Palestinian saying “Lan Nerhal” (we will not leave). For the first time, students felt they could proudly stride campus walkways wearing the keffiyeh. For the first time, the true depth of the Palestinian struggle was thrust onto the mainstream stage. And my J-school peers made certain that the encampment and its’ cause were not to be covered as a passing trend, but as one steadfast community’s call for immediate action in the face of the destruction in Gaza—one of the most harrowing atrocities many of us have ever seen in our lifetime.

In less than a week, my J-school colleagues and I are graduating. Reflecting on what I learned while covering the encampment, I’ve observed that the best way to tell a story isn’t to parachute in and out of it. Instead, it is to always have a stake in it. Only, then, can we truly understand the crushing impact that our words have on the communities we write about.

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America’s Colleges Are Reaping What They Sowed

Universities spent years saying that activism is not just welcome but encouraged on their campuses. Students took them at their word.

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N ick Wilson, a sophomore at Cornell University, came to Ithaca, New York, to refine his skills as an activist. Attracted by both Cornell’s labor-relations school and the university’s history of campus radicalism, he wrote his application essay about his involvement with a Democratic Socialists of America campaign to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act . When he arrived on campus, he witnessed any number of signs that Cornell shared his commitment to not just activism but also militant protest, taking note of a plaque commemorating the armed occupation of Willard Straight Hall in 1969.

Cornell positively romanticizes that event: The university library has published a “ Willard Straight Hall Occupation Study Guide ,” and the office of the dean of students once co-sponsored a panel on the protest. The school has repeatedly screened a documentary about the occupation, Agents of Change . The school’s official newspaper, published by the university media-relations office, ran a series of articles honoring the 40th anniversary, in 2009, and in 2019, Cornell held a yearlong celebration for the 50th, complete with a commemorative walk, a dedication ceremony, and a public conversation with some of the occupiers. “ Occupation Anniversary Inspires Continued Progress ,” the Cornell Chronicle headline read.

As Wilson has discovered firsthand, however, the school’s hagiographical odes to prior protests have not prevented it from cracking down on pro-Palestine protests in the present. Now that he has been suspended for the very thing he told Cornell he came there to learn how to do—radical political organizing—he is left reflecting on the school’s hypocrisies. That the theme of this school year at Cornell is “Freedom of Expression” adds a layer of grim humor to the affair.

Evan Mandery: University of hypocrisy

University leaders are in a bind. “These protests are really dynamic situations that can change from minute to minute,” Stephen Solomon, who teaches First Amendment law and is the director of NYU’s First Amendment Watch—an organization devoted to free speech—told me. “But the obligation of universities is to make the distinction between speech protected by the First Amendment and speech that is not.” Some of the speech and tactics protesters are employing may not be protected under the First Amendment, while much of it plainly is. The challenge universities are confronting is not just the law but also their own rhetoric. Many universities at the center of the ongoing police crackdowns have long sought to portray themselves as bastions of activism and free thought. Cornell is one of many universities that champion their legacy of student activism when convenient, only to bring the hammer down on present-day activists when it’s not. The same colleges that appeal to students such as Wilson by promoting opportunities for engagement and activism are now suspending them. And they’re calling the cops.

The police activity we are seeing universities level against their own students does not just scuff the carefully cultivated progressive reputations of elite private universities such as Columbia, Emory University, and NYU, or the equally manicured free-speech bona fides of red-state public schools such as Indiana University and the University of Texas at Austin. It also exposes what these universities have become in the 21st century. Administrators have spent much of the recent past recruiting social-justice-minded students and faculty to their campuses under the implicit, and often explicit, promise that activism is not just welcome but encouraged. Now the leaders of those universities are shocked to find that their charges and employees believed them. And rather than try to understand their role in cultivating this morass, the Ivory Tower’s bigwigs have decided to apply their boot heels to the throats of those under their care.

I spoke with 30 students, professors, and administrators from eight schools—a mix of public and private institutions across the United States—to get a sense of the disconnect between these institutions’ marketing of activism and their treatment of protesters. A number of people asked to remain anonymous. Some were untenured faculty or administrators concerned about repercussions from, or for, their institutions. Others were directly involved in organizing protests and were wary of being harassed. Several incoming students I spoke with were worried about being punished by their school before they even arrived. Despite a variety of ideological commitments and often conflicting views on the protests, many of those I interviewed were “shocked but not surprised”—a phrase that came up time and again—by the hypocrisy exhibited by the universities with which they were affiliated. (I reached out to Columbia, NYU, Cornell, and Emory for comment on the disconnect between their championing of past protests and their crackdowns on the current protesters. Representatives from Columbia, Cornell, and Emory pointed me to previous public statements. NYU did not respond.)

The sense that Columbia trades on the legacy of the Vietnam protests that rocked campus in 1968 was widespread among the students I spoke with. Indeed, the university honors its activist past both directly and indirectly, through library archives , an online exhibit , an official “Columbia 1968” X account , no shortage of anniversary articles in Columbia Magazine , and a current course titled simply “Columbia 1968.” The university is sometimes referred to by alumni and aspirants as the “Protest Ivy.” One incoming student told me that he applied to the school in part because of an admissions page that prominently listed community organizers and activists among its “distinguished alumni.”

Joseph Slaughter, an English professor and the executive director of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, talked with his class about the 1968 protests after the recent arrests at the school. He said his students felt that the university had actively marketed its history to them. “Many, many, many of them said they were sold the story of 1968 as part of coming to Columbia,” he told me. “They talked about it as what the university presents to them as the long history and tradition of student activism. They described it as part of the brand.”

This message reaches students before they take their first college class. As pro-Palestine demonstrations began to raise tensions on campus last month, administrators were keen to cast these protests as part of Columbia’s proud culture of student activism. The aforementioned high-school senior who had been impressed by Columbia’s activist alumni attended the university’s admitted-students weekend just days before the April 18 NYPD roundup. During the event, the student said, an admissions official warned attendees that they may experience “disruptions” during their visit, but boasted that these were simply part of the school’s “long and robust history of student protest.”

Remarkably, after more than 100 students were arrested on the order of Columbia President Minouche Shafik—in which she overruled a unanimous vote by the university senate’s executive committee not to bring the NYPD to campus —university administrators were still pushing this message to new students and parents. An email sent on April 19 informed incoming students that “demonstration, political activism, and deep respect for freedom of expression have long been part of the fabric of our campus.” Another email sent on April 20 again promoted Columbia’s tradition of activism, protest, and support of free speech. “This can sometimes create moments of tension,” the email read, “but the rich dialogue and debate that accompany this tradition is central to our educational experience.”

Evelyn Douek and Genevieve Lakier: The hypocrisy underlying the campus-speech controversy

Another student who attended a different event for admitted students, this one on April 21, said that every administrator she heard speak paid lip service to the school’s long history of protest. Her own feelings about the pro-Palestine protests were mixed—she said she believes that a genocide is happening in Gaza and also that some elements of the protest are plainly anti-Semitic—but her feelings about Columbia’s decision to involve the police were unambiguous. “It’s reprehensible but exactly what an Ivy League institution would do in this situation. I don’t know why everyone is shocked,” she said, adding: “It makes me terrified to go there.”

Beth Massey, a veteran activist who participated in the 1968 protests, told me with a laugh, “They might want to tell us they’re progressive, but they’re doing the business of the ruling class.” She was not surprised by the harsh response to the current student encampment or by the fact that it lit the fuse on a nationwide protest movement. Massey had been drawn to the radical reputation of Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College, as an open-minded teenager from the segregated South: “I actually wanted to go to Barnard because they had a history of progressive struggle that had happened going all the way back into the ’40s.” And the barn-burning history that appealed to Massey in the late 1960s has continued to attract contemporary students, albeit with one key difference: Today, that radical history has become part of the way that Barnard and Columbia sell their $60,000-plus annual tuition.

Of course, Columbia is not alone. The same trends have also prevailed at NYU, which likes to crow about its own radical history and promises contemporary students “ a world of activism opportunities .” An article published on the university’s website in March—titled “Make a Difference Through Activism at NYU”—promises students “myriad chances to put your activism into action.” The article points to campus institutions that “provide students with resources and opportunities to spark activism and change both on campus and beyond.” The six years I spent as a graduate student at NYU gave me plenty of reasons to be cynical about the university and taught me to view all of this empty activism prattle as white noise. But even I was astounded to see a video of students and faculty set upon by the NYPD, arrested at the behest of President Linda Mills.

“Across the board, there is a heightened awareness of hypocrisy,” Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at NYU, told me, noting that faculty were acutely conscious of the gap between the institution’s intensive commitment to DEI and the police crackdown. The university has recently made several “cluster hires”—centered on activism-oriented themes such as anti-racism, social justice, and indigeneity—that helped diversify the faculty. Some of those recent hires were among the people who spent a night zip-tied in a jail cell, arrested for the exact kind of activism that had made them attractive to NYU in the first place. And it wasn’t just faculty. The law students I spoke with were especially acerbic. After honing her activism skills at her undergraduate institution—another university that recently saw a violent police response to pro-Palestine protests—one law student said she came to NYU because she was drawn to its progressive reputation and its high percentage of prison-abolitionist faculty. This irony was not lost on her as the police descended on the encampment.

After Columbia students were arrested on April 18, students at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study decided to cancel a planned art festival and instead use the time to make sandwiches as jail support for their detained uptown peers. The school took photos of the students layering cold cuts on bread and posted it to Gallatin’s official Instagram. These posts not only failed to mention that the students were working in support of the pro-Palestine protesters; the caption—“making sandwiches for those in need”—implied that the undergrads might be preparing meals for, say, the homeless.

The contradictions on display at Cornell, Columbia, and NYU are not limited to the state of New York. The police response at Emory, another university that brags about its tradition of student protest, was among the most disturbing I have seen. Faculty members I spoke with at the Atlanta school, including two who had been arrested—the philosophy professor Noëlle McAfee and the English and Indigenous-studies professor Emil’ Keme—recounted harrowing scenes: a student being knocked down, an elderly woman struggling to breathe after tear-gas exposure, a colleague with welts from rubber bullets. These images sharply contrast with the university’s progressive mythmaking, a process that was in place even before 2020’s “summer of racial reckoning” sent universities scrambling to shore up their activist credentials.

In 2018, Emory’s Campus Life office partnered with students and a design studio to begin work on an exhibit celebrating the university’s history of identity-based activism. Then, not long after George Floyd’s murder, the university’s library released a series of blog posts focusing on topics including “Black Student Activism at Emory,” “Protests and Movements,” “Voting Rights and Public Policy,” and “Authors and Artists as Activists.” That same year, the university announced its new Arts and Social Justice Fellows initiative, a program that “brings Atlanta artists into Emory classrooms to help students translate their learning into creative activism in the name of social justice.” In 2021, the university put on an exhibit celebrating its 1969 protests , in which “Black students marched, demonstrated, picketed, and ‘rapped’ on those institutions affecting the lives of workers and students at Emory.” Like Cornell’s and Columbia’s, Emory’s protests seem to age like fine wine: It takes half a century before the institution begins enjoying them.

N early every person I talked with believed that their universities’ responses were driven by donors, alumni, politicians, or some combination thereof. They did not believe that they were grounded in serious or reasonable concerns about the physical safety of students; in fact, most felt strongly that introducing police into the equation had made things far more dangerous for both pro-Palestine protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters. Jeremi Suri, a historian at UT Austin—who told me he is not politically aligned with the protesters—recalls pleading with both the dean of students and the mounted state troopers to call off the charge. “It was like the Russian army had come onto campus,” Suri mused. “I was out there for 45 minutes to an hour. I’m very sensitive to anti-Semitism. Nothing anti-Semitic was said.” He added: “There was no reason not to let them shout until their voices went out.”

From the May 1930 issue: Hypocrisy–a defense

As one experienced senior administrator at a major research university told me, the conflagration we are witnessing shows how little many university presidents understand either their campus communities or the young people who populate them. “When I saw what Columbia was doing, my immediate thought was: They have not thought about day two ,” he said, laughing. “If you confront an 18-year-old activist, they don’t back down. They double down.” That’s what happened in 1968, and it’s happening again now. Early Tuesday morning, Columbia students occupied Hamilton Hall—the site of the 1968 occupation, which they rechristened Hind’s Hall in honor of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza—in response to the university’s draconian handling of the protests. They explicitly tied these events to the university’s past, calling out its hypocrisy on Instagram: “This escalation is in line with the historical student movements of 1968 … which Columbia repressed then and celebrates today.” The university, for its part, responded now as it did then: Late on Tuesday, the NYPD swarmed the campus in an overnight raid that led to the arrest of dozens of students.

The students, professors, and administrators I’ve spoken with in recent days have made clear that this hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed and that the crackdown isn’t working, but making things worse. The campus resistance has expanded to include faculty and students who were originally more ambivalent about the protests and, in a number of cases, who support Israel. They are disturbed by what they rightly see as violations of free expression, the erosion of faculty governance, and the overreach of administrators. Above all, they’re fed up with the incandescent hypocrisy of institutions, hoisted with their own progressive petards, as the unstoppable force of years’ worth of self-righteous rhetoric and pseudo-radical posturing meets the immovable object of students who took them at their word.

In another video published by The Cornell Daily Sun , recorded only hours after he was suspended, Nick Wilson explained to a crowd of student protesters what had brought him to the school. “In high school, I discovered my passion, which was community organizing for a better world. I told Cornell University that’s why I wanted to be here,” he said, referencing his college essay. Then he paused for emphasis, looking around as his peers began to cheer. “And those fuckers admitted me.”

Here’s How Ivy League Schools Evaluate Student GPAs

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One of the main gates on the Brown University campus, decorated with the University crest. (Photo by ... [+] Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)

A stellar GPA is one of the building blocks of a successful Ivy League application, and as the school year winds down, many students are anxiously seeking to give theirs a final boost. While most students and families understand the importance of a 4.0, few are aware of how top colleges evaluate student GPAs or what they look for when reviewing student transcripts. Though your GPA may seem to be a simple metric, nothing could be further from the case—colleges consider more than just the number, accounting for complexities such as diverse grading systems across schools, trends in grade inflation, and level of course rigor.

Here are three important facts to keep in mind about your GPA as you choose your courses:

1. Your GPA doesn’t directly compare to that of students at other schools.

One common misconception among college applicants is that they can compare their GPAs with those of students attending different schools. However, the GPA is not a universal metric but rather a reflection of an individual's academic performance within their specific educational environment. As a result, comparing GPAs from different schools is like comparing apples and oranges. For instance, some schools offer a plethora of AP, IB, and honors courses, while others may have limited options or offer none at all. Additionally, the weight assigned to AP versus honors versus regular classes varies from school to school. So, your GPA may not hold the same weight as those of your peers at different schools, even if you all have 4.0s.

Admissions officers understand that schools vary in their rigor, curriculum, and grading policies. Therefore, they evaluate your GPA in the context of your high school, considering the courses offered and the academic challenges presented. Instead of fixating on how your GPA compares to your friends’ from other schools, focus on challenging yourself and taking advantage of all the opportunities available to you at your school.

2. GPAs across the country are inflated—and colleges know it.

The last few years have seen surges in high school student GPAs nationwide. While GPA inflation has been on the rise over the last decade, average ACT composite scores are steadily declining. “For the 1.4 million ACT test-takers in the high school class of 2023, the average composite score on the exam was 19.5 out of 36, the lowest score since 1991,” according to The New York Times . The parallel differences, coupled with academic differences across schools, suggest that GPA must be considered in tandem with multiple other factors. Simply put, an A no longer means what it used to on a transcript.

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Ivy League and other top colleges are well aware of this trend and evaluate student GPAs alongside other metrics such as standardized test scores and AP exam scores in order to better understand a student’s academic skill sets. While some Ivy League and other top schools remain test-optional , they still place emphasis on course rigor and the context offered by your high school profile in order to understand the grades on your transcript.

3. Colleges will recalculate your GPA.

Given the abundance of variables in GPA calculations, colleges often recalculate the metric to create a standardized baseline for comparison between students across different schools. The recalibration may involve adjusting for variations in grading scales or the weighting of honors, International Baccalaureate (IB) or Advanced Placement (AP) courses. The University of California system, for example, calculates students’ UC GPAs by converting grades to grade points (an A is equivalent to 4 points, a B to three points, etc.) for classes taken between summer after 9th and summer after 11th grade, and adding one point for each honors class, and dividing by total classes taken to yield final GPA.*

Other colleges also take additional factors that impact academic performance into consideration, and envelop GPA into a broader, holistic consideration. For instance, the Harvard University lawsuit over affirmative action revealed that Harvard rates students on a scale of 1–6 (with one being the most desirable) in academic, extracurricular, athletic and personal categories. A student’s GPA and test scores are folded together into an academic score which “summarizes the applicant’s academic achievement and potential based on grades, testing results, letters of recommendation, academic prizes, and any submitted academic work.”

This process aims to provide a fair and equitable evaluation of students from different educational backgrounds. Keep in mind that Harvard considers not only your grades, test scores, and academic rigor in this score, but also “evidence of substantial scholarship” and “academic creativity,” which can make the difference between a 1 and a 2 in the scoring system. These systems underscore the importance of taking advantage of every opportunity, showcasing your unique personality and creativity, and seeking to maximize opportunities to improve your performance within the academic landscape of your institution.

By understanding the complex way by which colleges evaluate students’ GPAs, you are better equipped to present a comprehensive and competitive picture of your academic achievements on your transcript and stand out in the competitive Ivy League admissions landscape.

*Variations exist for in-state versus out-of-state students and by high school. Be sure to calculate your GPA following the UC issued guidelines.

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Why I’m Not Calling the Police on My Students’ Encampment

The president of wesleyan university explains why he’s allowing pro-palestinian protesters to pitch tents on campus..

The encampment at Wesleyan University went up on the night of Sunday, April 28, during a planned rally in support of Palestinians. At the time, I was in an open meeting called by the student government to answer questions about how the university invests its endowment but also about many other topics—from labor issues at a construction site to whether there could be a nonbinary entrance to the swimming pool. But the energy in the room was about the war in Gaza and what Wesleyan could do in reaction to it.

The students were well aware that I’d already gone on record—several times in print—with respect to Gaza since the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7. On that day I wrote about Hamas’s “sickening violence” against Israel, and since then I have written about the dangers of antisemitism and Islamophobia at home and about the loss of innocent life in Gaza. So I can’t argue that university leaders should keep quiet or say something evasive about “ principled neutrality .” Indeed, the students reminded me of a phrase I’d used: “Neutrality is complicity.” Although I am one of the only American university presidents to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, the students in the meeting did not find that nearly enough. Mere words, they told me, are just another form of neutrality. They accused me of trying to hide behind them. And outside the chants grew louder: “Roth, Roth, you can’t hide / you can’t hide from genocide.” When I walked home, an angry crowd of maybe 75 followed close behind.

By Monday morning there were a couple dozen tents set up. Students were careful not to block exits and entrances to campus buildings, and they made sure that the pathways through their encampment were clear. They were claiming territory for their protest, but they were not attempting to close it off. This was important for everyone. For the protesters, it was a sign that they wanted to spread their message to others, and also that they were open to discussing their objectives with anyone who wanted to talk. For me and my administrative colleagues, it was important because one of the reasons encampments are not normally permitted is that they mark off public areas for exclusive use, thereby denying others the opportunity to use that part of campus. Sure, the area was now dominated by signs bearing very specific and sometimes aggressive messages—among them, slogans about genocide and freeing Palestine that were off-putting to many on campus, including myself. (There were no signs demanding the return of the hostages kidnapped from kibbutz.) But this is a protest directed at the administration, and I don’t get to choose the protesters’ messages. I do want to pay attention to them.

We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, and because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. Over the last week I’ve gotten many notes from alumni, parents, and strangers chastising me for not making the protesters “pay a price” for breaking the rules. In my initial message to the broad university community, I wrote : “The students [in the encampment] know that they are in violation of university rules and seem willing to accept the consequences.” So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says. In this case, I knew the students were part of a broad protest movement, and protest movements often put a strain on an institution’s rules. They are meant to do that. The encampment was “ non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations,” I wrote, and “as long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.” I added that we would “not tolerate intimidation or harassment of students, staff, or faculty,” and that the protesters, as far as I could tell, were not moving in that direction.

The encampment is just beneath my office window, and many times during the last several days I’ve looked over to see what was happening: mostly students and the occasional faculty member engaged in casual conversation, and occasionally animated debate. I’ve written that being a student in the West has come to mean “practicing freedom ,” and I was reminded of that as I looked at these young people expressing their political concerns. There were drawings and flags, and a sense of a community. Between classes and during mealtimes, there have been many people just passing through. Some stop to talk, others just amble along. I myself have walked through every day I’m on campus, and notwithstanding hostility from more than a few protesters (“Why are you unwilling to support divestment?!”), I stop to talk to students I know from my classes or say hello to those I don’t know. One day I bumped into the campus rabbi there, and we talked for a while until the leader of a Black music collective on campus happened by and told me about his senior recital.

The encampment, now grown to roughly 50 tents, may be fostering a sense of community among protesters, but it hasn’t been kumbaya for everyone. Several Jewish students were outraged by the messages about genocide and freeing Palestine. Did this mean freeing the region from Jews? The expressions “Globalize the Intifada,” “Glory to the Martyrs,” and “Terror is justified as long as Palestine is occupied” indicated toleration if not support of Hamas, an organization that justifies raping women and killing babies as long as you call them Jewish settlers. A few students showed up with an Israeli flag and were shamed on social media. Their counterprotest didn’t result in productive conversation, alas. But it didn’t spill into violence either, and my team did its best to make sure that was the case.

I’ve checked in with many Jewish students individually and sat down with a group to talk about their fears—and their complaints about faculty bias. Amazingly to them and to me, a few professors took votes in their classes to decide whether they should hold class in the encampment. Minority rights? Not something these faculty seemed concerned with, at least not until the provost reminded them that they could not force any student to support a cause with which the professor happened to agree. Of course, faculty are free to support any cause they like, but whatever political acumen they believe themselves to possess, they are not free to impose this on their students. The Jewish students opposed to the protesters seemed glad to be able to talk openly about their concerns. I emphasized to them that I could not protect them from opposing views but that I could protect their safety and capacity to pursue their education.

There was some graffiti vandalism after the encampment settled in, and we let people know that if that continued, the university would have to step in. Fortunately, that didn’t continue, and so far, almost all the protesters seem eager to find a constructive path: to make their arguments about divestment and about boycotts. They know that I have long been on record opposing these arguments, but I will try to listen to them with an open mind. Ultimately, it is the Board of Trustees that will decide about investment policy. Myself, I am eager to find ways of supporting Gazan relief efforts, and of doing whatever we can to promote a sustainable peace in the region that would acknowledge the rights of all parties. I’d like to think students know that.

I have watched with sadness the police actions on some campuses, as well as the lack of police action in Los Angeles when an encampment was attacked by counterprotesters. I can well imagine that for most university presidents, calling in the police is the last resort. I too have depended on the law enforcement in the past, most heartbreakingly when a student was murdered on campus many years ago. I will certainly ask for police help if I need it to protect people, property, or university operations from criminal behavior.

It’s almost the end of the school year, and more than once I’ve been asked, “Don’t I wish we had just made it through a couple of more weeks without incident?” Mostly … no. How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much? I respect that they’re concerned about Gaza; I admire that they’re not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials. Will their protest help? My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the end will help the reactionary forces of populist authoritarianism. I also think student protesters are wrong to focus on university investments . I would prefer they use their energies to pressure the U.S. government to do more to get the hostages released, to stop supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war tactics, and to bring more direct aid to people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. My team expects to discuss all of this with students in the coming days. Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.

I share this view of the moment with some trepidation. It only takes a few jerks to turn a peaceful protest into a violent confrontation. But I also share this with hope that we will all learn something from this experience—whether or not we are sleeping in a tent.

Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His most recent books are The Student: A Short History and Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses .

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Thomas L. Friedman

Why the Campus Protests Are So Troubling

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

Readers have been asking me, and I have been asking myself of late, how I feel about the campus demonstrations to stop the war in Gaza. Anyone reading this column since Oct. 7 knows that my focus has been on events on the ground in the Middle East, but this phenomenon has become too big to ignore. In short: I find the whole thing very troubling, because the dominant messages from the loudest voices and many placards reject important truths about how this latest Gaza war started and what will be required to bring it to a fair and sustainable conclusion.

My problem is not that the protests in general are “antisemitic” — I would not use that word to describe them, and indeed, I am deeply uncomfortable as a Jew with how the charge of antisemitism is thrown about on the Israel-Palestine issue. My problem is that I am a hardheaded pragmatist who lived in Beirut and Jerusalem, cares about people on all sides and knows one thing above all from my decades in the region: The only just and workable solution to this issue is two nation-states for two indigenous peoples.

If you are for that, whatever your religion, nationality or politics, you’re part of the solution. If you are not for that, you’re part of the problem.

And from everything I have read and watched, too many of these protests have become part of the problem — for three key reasons.

First, they are virtually all about stopping Israel’s shameful behavior in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, while giving a free pass to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion in which it murdered Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli women and kidnapped or killed everyone they could get their hands on, from little kids to sick grandparents.

Again, you can be — and should be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing everything in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that thousands of children have been killed, maimed and orphaned . But if you refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to trigger this — not to justify what Israel has done, but to explain how the Jewish state could inflict so much suffering on Palestinian men, women and children in reverse — you’re just another partisan throwing another partisan log on the fire. By giving Hamas a pass, the protests have put the onus on Israel to such a degree that its very existence is a target for some students, while Hamas’s murderous behavior is passed off as a praiseworthy adventure in decolonization .

Second, when people chant slogans like “liberate Palestine” and “from the river to the sea,” they are essentially calling for the erasure of the state of Israel, not a two-state solution. They are arguing that the Jewish people have no right to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t believe that about Jews, and I don’t believe that about Palestinians. I believe in a two-state solution in which Israel, in return for security guarantees, withdraws from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state that accepts the principle of two states for two peoples is established in those territories occupied in 1967.

I believe in that so strongly that the thing I am most proud of in my 45-year career is my interview in February 2002 with the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, in which he, for the first time, called on the entire Arab League to offer full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal to the 1967 lines — a call that led the Arab League to hold a peace conference the next month, on March 27 and 28, in Beirut to do just that. It was called the Arab Peace Initiative .

And do you know what Hamas’s response was to that first pan-Arab peace initiative for a two-state solution? I’ll let CNN tell you . Here’s its report from Israel on the evening of March 27, 2002, right after the Arab League peace summit opened:

NETANYA, Israel — A suicide bomber killed at least 19 people and injured 172 at a popular seaside hotel Wednesday, the start of the Jewish religious holiday of Passover. At least 48 of the injured were described as “severely wounded.” The bombing occurred in a crowded dining room at the Park Hotel, a coastal resort, during the traditional meal marking the start of Passover. … The Palestinian group Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Yes, that was Hamas’s response to the Arab peace initiative of two nation-states for two peoples: blowing up a Passover Seder in Israel.

Hey, Friedman, but what about all the violence that Israeli settlers perpetrated against Palestinians and how Bibi Netanyahu deliberately built up Hamas and undermined the Palestinian Authority, which embraced Oslo?

Answer: That violence and those Netanyahu actions are awful and harmful to a two-state solution as well. That is why I am intensely both anti-Hamas and anti-Netanyahu. And if you oppose just one and not also the other, you should reflect a little more on what you are shouting at your protest or your anti-protest. Because no one has done more to harm the prospects of a two-state solution than the codependent Hamas and Netanyahu factions.

Hamas is not against the post-1967 occupation. It is against the existence of a Jewish state and believes there should be an Islamic state between the river and the sea. When protests on college campuses ignore that, they are part of the problem. Just as much as Israel supporters who ignore the fact that the far-right members in Netanyahu’s own coalition government are for a Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. How do I know? Because Netanyahu wrote it into the coalition agreemen t between himself and his far-right partners.

The third reason that these protests have become part of the problem is that they ignore the view of many Palestinians in Gaza who detest Hamas’s autocracy. These Palestinians are enraged by precisely what these student demonstrations ignore: Hamas launched this war without permission from the Gazan population and without preparation for Gazans to protect themselves when Hamas knew that a brutal Israeli response would follow. In fact, a Hamas official said at the start of the war that its tunnels were for only its fighters, not civilians.

That is not to excuse Israel in the least for its excesses, but, again, it is also not to give Hamas a pass for inviting them.

My view: Hamas was ready to sacrifice thousands of Gazan civilians to win the support of the next global generation on TikTok. And it worked. But one reason it worked was a lack of critical thinking by too many in that generation — the result of a campus culture that has become way too much about what to think and not how to think.

I highly recommend a few different articles about how angry Gazans are at Hamas for starting this war without any goal in mind other than the fruitless task of trying to destroy Israel so Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, could get his personal revenge.

I was particularly struck by a piece in The National, a newspaper in Abu Dhabi, by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian American raised in Gaza. The headline is: “Israel’s War Has Killed 31 Members of My Family, Yet It’s Vital to Speak Out Against Hamas.” Alkhatib placed Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in the context of the rising protests against its inept and autocrat rule that have broken out periodically in Gaza since 2019, under the banner of “We Want to Live.”

Wrote Alkhatib, a political analyst who is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council: “Having grown up in Gaza, I experienced Hamas’s rise to power and their gradual grip over the Strip and Palestinian politics and society, hiding behind a resistance narrative and using extremist politics to sabotage prospects for a peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Months before Oct. 7, tens of thousands of Gazans protested in the streets in defiance of Hamas, just as they had in 2019 and 2017.”

Alkhatib added that the “‘We Want to Live’ protest movement decried living conditions and unemployment in Gaza, as well as the lack of a political horizon for meaningful change in the territory’s realities and opportunities. Hamas’s regime consisted of a criminal and despotic enterprise that used Gaza as a haven for the group’s members and affiliates and turned Palestinians there into aid-dependent subjects reliant on the international community” and turned Gaza into “a ‘resistance citadel’ that was part of a nefarious regional alliance with Iran.”

A campus with critical thinkers might have had a teach-in on the central lawn on that subject, not just on the violence of Israeli settlers.

Against this backdrop, we are seeing college presidents at places like Rutgers and Northwestern agree to some of the demands by students to end their protests. As NPR summarized them, the “demands vary by school, though they generally call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, disclosures of institutional investments and divestment from companies with ties to Israel or that otherwise profit from its military operation in Gaza.”

What Palestinians and Israelis need most now are not performative gestures of disinvestment but real gestures of impactful investment, not the threat of a deeper war in Rafah but a way to build more partners for peace. Invest in groups that promote Arab-Jewish understanding, like the Abraham Initiatives or the New Israel Fund. Invest in management skills capacity-building for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, like the wonderful Education for Employment network or Anera, that will help a new generation to take over the Palestinian Authority and build strong, noncorrupt institutions to run a Palestinian state.

This is not a time for exclusionary thinking. It is a time for complexity thinking and pragmatic thinking: How do we get to two nation-states for two indigenous peoples? If you want to make a difference and not just make a point, stand for that, work for that, reject anyone who rejects it and give a hug to anyone who embraces it.

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Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @ tomfriedman • Facebook