I’m at home, recovering from an unexpected surgery. And doing really well (Joy! Relief! Terror. Oh my lucky stars. I live in Boston and have access to great care.)

Resting at home has brought the joy of sweet time to consume things, like books, soup, and the company of soup-bearing dear ones. Workout videos bearing titles with the words “gentle” and “unfold” in the titles, instead of “shred” or “incinerate.” And Facebook. Here’s one video that a few of my mama-friends have been sharing enthusiastically:

Right away, I loved the intentions to nurture high expectations in children, to showcase Justice Sonia Sotomayor as a role model for girls. But, while following along in Abby Cadabby’s short conversation with Justice Sotomayor about her life plans, my smile quickly became an owie. Does anyone else feel it?

Abby Cadabby:          I want a career as a princess!

Justice Sotomayor:  Abby, pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career

AC:          It’s not?

JS:          No. Remember, a career is a job that you train and prepare for, and that you plan to do for a long time.

AC:          You’re right! I guess a princess really isn’t a career.

Like I said…ouch! Justice Sotomayor totally shoots her down. I find myself sad for Abby: she feels the pang – and scrambles to declare that she, too, will become a judge (whew!) – and ends her search for her life’s work so quickly.

And I find myself simply not believing Abby when she says what she wants is to become a judge. Not even in the world of pretend is this believable.

What Abby wants is to please her mentor as quickly as possible. And what she learns is to fear being wrong. She learns to be uncomfortable in a space of not-knowing (a reality of life and all problem-solving). She learns that reacting to that fear is more important than exploring curiosity. And she learns to hide an interest that may be the roots of a real passion. Any real thinking about the problem has gone out the window. What we get is truncation, shame, and an easy fix. We lose big on trust and on learning. So much we could have learned about Abby, about Justice Sotomayor, about interests, and about work—all stepping stones for real development. Does anyone else find this, well, a major bummer?

What if, instead, Justice Sotomayor had said, Abby, let’s talk about careers—what that word mean to you? (Mime muppet talking with Supreme Court Justice and female exemplar here).

What if Justice Sotomayor had asked, What’s interesting to you about princess-life? Maybe Abby’s curious about power and politics. Maybe she thinks castles are cool (architecture!) or the way in which their interiors are tiled (geometry!). Maybe it’s the design of those clothes (brilliant!). Maybe she is interested in princesses-work, or maybe she thinks it would be great never to have to work. Maybe she is curious about having babies (real work!). Or maybe she hasn’t really thought about it for herself yet. The thing is, we just don’t get to know.

I want to see Justice Sotomayor back in conversation with Abby, talking about what school is really like, and what it takes for a person to grow and be herself. I’m disappointed to see a picture of learning by shame. Learning by shame is one way to make the grade, but it’s not real learning. It’s messaging. Abby gets the message. So do the young human beings out there in TV-land. It’s a lot like what they encounter in school, though not all will choose to respond to it as Abby does (see Brene Brown’s pioneering work on shame). The please-the-mentor dilemma is rampant throughout education. It is not helpful to producing real-world thinkers. That’s why this difference matters so much. It matters across all domains of life.

Here’s why it matters in medical education: poor management of uncertainty has been linked to higher costs and misdiagnosis. Great doctors—doctors who provide excellent care and who avoid mistakes—regularly call upon the capacity to navigate uncertainty successfully. They know what suspending judgement really feels like. They are ok just hanging out there in that very space of not-knowing that Abby found so uncomfortable—not being right, just searching, observing, thinking, questioning. They choose to acknowledge when they don’t know, rather than to hide their not-knowing. They choose to ask their patients, “what’s your understanding of the situation at this point?” These actions improve both diagnosis and patient trust.

Over the years, I have made it a habit to notice when doctors exercise these capacities, and to ask them where they learned to do that. Here’s a typical response: “lots of gray hairs.”

Great doctors learn this on their own. Through practice. Through being with people who are sick, and not having all the answers. Through the creativity of using the data that is available and of asking the right questions. Through observation, conversation, and reflection. The culture of school, of training, of expertise, has not helped.

Let’s face it: real-life problems are steeped in uncertainty. How can we support our students in accessing practice in navigating it with open curiosity, fact-finding, and critical thinking? In my opinion, well-designed arts interventions can be a powerful medium for the kinds of experiences and conversations that foster this kind of practice.

To get back to Abby Cadabby, princesses, and ambition: I do not mean to overlook the potentially troubling object of her life pursuit. People, we have a princess obsession crisis on our hands! Let’s fight it by nurturing real learning and success in children. By all means, call in the role models! Someone who can ask questions, get at the truth, admit to high imperfection, really be with a person. How about Caitlin Moran? Moran’s book How to be a Woman further speaks to the matter of princess-life directly, exposing the truth:

“Being a real princess isn’t all about wafting around in a castle, being beautiful and noble. It’s about eating disorders, loneliness, Wham! mix tapes, shagging around, waging a pitched battle with the royal family, and, eventually, the incredible fascination that you hold over others conspiring to kill you” (293).

A bone fide BPA Interviewer of the Year would ask Abby all about her thoughts and life and dreams. And should Abby have questions back, Moran would be ready.