Ponderings on Failure and Success in Education

I recently read the 2008 Harvard University Commencement speech given by J.K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, and an example of enterprise and ingenuity . In her speech, Ms. Rowling speaks on a subject at the core of my very psyche: failure. Like most everyone in the world, Ms. Rowling experienced her fair share of failure, in both her personal and professional life, and the media has greatly publicized these trials over the past few years, as they have reported on Ms. Rowling’s unlikely celebrity. Speaking candidly on the subject, she notes that as a student, failure had been her greatest fear, but only in failing as an adult, in essentially hitting rock bottom, could Ms. Rowling cast away the chains of personal pride that had once bound and stifled her, eventually going on to become the most successful author of all time.
One of the most salient points of the speech comes when Ms. Rowling observes to her audience, “You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success… Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.” How aptly this seemed to describe our educational system in the United States. From the moment our children are able to understand letters on a page, we contribute to an educational identity in which we tell them whether they are successes or not. We have institutionalized this notion of failure across every level of learning such that students from all locales and of all backgrounds are often more driven by this fear of failure than by their desire for success.
It is undeniable that our students all desire to succeed but experience different reactions to the “world’s criteria” for success, for failure, and for what students “ought to know.” Often this overarching norm is further broken down as a result of geographic or socioeconomic factors that might determine how we whittle down what is important for our students’ futures. Perhaps in urban centers along the east coast, we are happy if our students simply graduate high school, while maybe we expect our students in Silicon Valley to have a vast mastery of sciences and technology. In some cases, there might even be a striking sense of failure if one does not matriculate to an Ivy League or top-tier school.
In the last year, I have often reflected upon my mentality regarding student failure while I was teaching in West Philadelphia. Though the state handed down standards for student mastery, these pillars were not enough for me. I wanted my ”kids” to be more than competent on the reading and writing scale; I wanted them to be independent and creative thinkers who freely and efficiently expressed their ideas through textual interpretation and writing. I wanted them to be citizen leaders who embodied the notion of respect and counteracted the violence so prevalent in our halls, to be athletes and artists, and I wanted them to love learning. Of course, I wished that each of them would attend college, and it is this very last recollection the draws my attention to this former educator’s greatest flaw: I wanted my students’ to attain educational goals that I desired for them, but perhaps I lost sight of what was best or my students.
In this way, I embodied just one more example of the way in which our schools are failing our students. I do not sit back and claim that I should not have had such high expectations for my students, but I never wondered how I contributed to their educational identity when I held very definitive determinations of failure, most of which were the lingering effects of my own background, one vastly different from that of my students. How difficult it was for me to understand that a number of my most accelerated students simply did not want to go to college. Many of them wanted to go to trade schools or work as beauticians, both of which did not require that they finish high school.
I fought the issue tooth and nail, and I was hardly aware of the messages I sent them how I would judge them for their decisions… as sub-par or educational failures. While this might be a drastic commentary, and though I know my students comprehended that my hopes for them truly emerged from my affection for them, I cannot be as certain that they did not resent these vicarious aspirations. Looking back, I think that my insistence on their attendance of college may have stemmed from my fear that anything else might have been interpreted as approval of dropping out of high school. Now I understand this is far from the truth, and yet I still hold on to a feeling that our children need to continue their education past high school.
So what is the solution? I am not calling for lower standards! No, that seems to be the problem as it is. Yet, I am advocating sensitivity in the ways in which we do uphold our expectations and aspirations for future generations. Our educational system has so strongly implemented checks and balances for math and reading that we have forgotten the utility of the arts, and the import of trades. Some of the greatest minds in American history have not attended college, but this does not mean that they were not economically viable and productive. While I trust that we need to ensure our students stay in school and pursue long-term education, I think that we must be politically sensitive to what kinds of education accept as options for success. Maybe I am speaking for myself, but I am just not sure that we have yet to figure out just what our students “ought to know.”