The crisis point of success, education and hard work, pt. 1

There is a growing debate in the country about our future and how the dimness of that possible future is related to education.  From many, there is concern that we have simply lost our way, but that education can provide a path back.  Largely, I agree with that concept, but at the same time, the idea as it relates to our current national situation is missing the key point.  The issue is not education or the education system, but that our culture has lost almost everything that it once had that set it apart.  Since the 1960s, we have become complacent about true success; we have been seduced to think success = wealth, and worse, we think that wealth will merely emerge because we are due.

My email and blogger friend, JD Roth posted a provocative article about the state of childrearing and education on his Get Rich Slowly blog. In the article, his guest author, Robert Brokamp, wrote about Amy Chua who wrote Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother in which she proposes that American parents are too soft.  This is not a new idea.  Many expert voices such as Psychiatrist Jean Twenge of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before fame said much the same thing—we’ve raised a generation of kids who are far too coddled.

I first read about Chua in a blog post from Wired and as in Brokamp’s article, she is taken to task for being too harsh.  I think at this point in our nation’s history, we need that bitter pill of harshness to even hope to get through the noise.  The bottom line for me is that as a college professor, we are not talking about mere statistics, but real children being betrayed by the system.  Every semester, I see complacent children unclear how to move through the maze of higher education, often unwilling to put in the hard work, and often confused as to why I am asking such work from them BECAUSE THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN ASKED FOR IT BEFORE.  At the same time, there are educators who seem to cater to students, more worried about making them happy than about helping them learn.  Yet, before you rake professors over the coals, it is the system that is broken, a system that merely reflects our society.

What is Success?

I have already written about this issue before here and in my book Success for Life. What is true success?  Is it making the most money?  Being the most popular?  I was asked, “What if what I want to do in life doesn’t make me rich, will I not be successful?”  My reply points to my value system when I said,  “Answer this question: How do you define success?  Is it money?  Fame?  Glory?  Others worshipping the ground you walk on? None of these concepts actually gets to the point of what success is. True success however is a deep issue that deals with many things, but money and fame are rarely part of that equation.  Success is you knowing that you invested in others.  Success is hearing “I love you” from a child.  Success is knowing that each second of the day was lived with passion and purpose.” The remainder of the book dealt with underscoring, again and again, that real success is NOT about money.  And, educationally, it is not about grades.

Brokamp stated that Thomas Stanley, the “co-author of The Millionaire Next Door: Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy and author of the more recent Stop Acting Rich: …And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire ,” reported that the typical American millionaire “owns his own business, went to a four-year public college, and was a B or C student.” I won’t encourage my kids to be C students, but a person’s success will be determined by more than a transcript — things like interpersonal skills, self-confidence, creativity, and a certain amount of independent thought, among others.”

I was asked about grades years while doing research for my book.  I said much the same thing to the concern about grades.  The student question was “does having a good GPA really matter.”  My simple answer was “not really.”  Why not?  Well, of course doing our very best all the time does matter, but researchers into job interviews point out that hiring rarely relates to someone’s transcript.  The problem though is that we have allowed our educational system to be shaped in a way where the GPA does matter IN THE SYSTEM.  I constantly have students in my office concerned about their financial aid, getting into the program of their major, or keeping their scholarship.  Grade inflation is an admitted issue from the most prestigious institutions in our country down to the smallest community college.

But, later in the same article, Brokamp wrote “American kids are getting out-educated. You’ve likely already heard all the stats about America’s flagging education system, so I won’t dwell on the topic. I’ll just quote one study — from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — which found that American 15-year-olds ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. Tops in each category: the kids in Shanghai, China.”

So, while our system is focused on a measure that matters little in the real world, when our students are put against the world’s children in real learning, we find out that our grades for our students are basically lies.  We have coddled the children so long that we, the adults, don’t seem to understand how we’ve shifted the scale.  A “C” grade no longer means average, but apparently means failure, yet as the studies show, a “C” grade or an “A” grade is no indicator of future success, let alone an indicator of true learning.

So what do we do about this?  Next week, in part 2, I’ll keep discussing this issue and see if we can figure out any steps we might take together.

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