A Different Take
In my Leadership class I teach to seniors, I had a number of local Denver leaders all tell my students that before they had success professionally, they had to experience failure at some level. Many noted that without that experience of failure, they would not have been the people that they are today. Schools need to help students learn to be resilient. As our students enter life beyond CA--college, graduate school, and/or the professional world--they will face challenging situations, and their successes will depend on their agility and adaptability. We can help them be more competitive and healthy by allowing them to learn and benefit from their mistakes.
We also help them greatly by supporting them as they pursue passions of their own choosing, and not ours.
I want to share this article from the New York Times written by a professor from Columbia University that is more about the college experience, but it is relevant both for us as parents and for the work of independent schools like CA.
The Perils of Being Perfect
September 12, 2010
Mark C. Taylor is chairman of the department of religion at Columbia University and professor emeritus of humanities at Williams College. He is the author of "Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities."
Several years ago I was teaching a course on the philosophical assumptions and cultural impact of massive multi-user online games at Williams College. The students in the course were very intelligent and obviously interested in the topic.
But as the semester progressed, I began to detect a problem with the class. The students were working hard and performing well, but there was no energy in our discussions and no passion in the students. They were hesitant to express their ideas and often seemed to be going through the motions. I tried to encourage them to be more venturesome with tactics I had used successfully in the past, but nothing worked.
One day I asked them what was or, perhaps better, was not going on. Why were they so cautious, and where was their enthusiasm for learning? They seemed relieved to talk about it, and their response surprised me. Since pre-kindergarten, they explained, they had been programmed to perform well so they could get to the next level. They had been taught the downside of risk and encouraged to play it safe. What mattered most was getting into a good elementary school, middle school and high school so that they would finally be admitted to a top college. Having succeeded beyond their parents’ wildest expectations, they did not know why they were in college and had no idea what to do after graduation.
In today’s market-driven economy, we constantly hear that choice is the highest good and that competition fuels innovation. But this is not always true. Choice provokes anxiety and competition can quell the imagination and discourage the spirit of experimentation that is necessary for creativity. In a world obsessed with ratings, well-meaning parents all too often train their children to jump through the hoops they think will lead to success.
This was a bad bet – the course many young people were forced to take has not paid off. The lucrative jobs they expected as a reward for years of hard work have vanished and show little sign of returning in the near future. The difficult truth is that their education has not prepared them for the world they facing.
Though many young people have become disillusioned with Wall Street and all it represents and would like to pursue alternative careers, they have neither the educational nor financial resources to do so. The situation is critical – colleges and universities must be reformed in ways that allow students to develop the knowledge and skills they need for creative and productive lives. And parents must give their children the freedom to explore possibilities they never could have imagined.
