Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

When I was a child, our school would parade around the hometown heroes to give their well-rehearsed "stay in school" speeches, rife with truisms and cliches, like "go out and give a hundred ten percent" and "you can be anything you want to be."  I never understood the connection between the quadratic formula and throwing a ball into a hoop.  Yet, it was the ultimate marketing tool - the mythology that, if I work hard enough, I can have the ultimate career doing any job that I desire, making buckets of money and finding happiness in the process.  A college degree could be the e-ticket that would make my wildest dreams come true. 

Fast-forward twenty years.  I'm twenty seven years old (at what point do I quit using that term "years old?"), doing what I love, but under no illusion that "I can be whatever I want to be."  I sit with a group of eight students who are working with me on an outline for a book they want to write.  I'm excited about the concept of analyzing the values of the American Dream with The Simpson's as a motiff. 

"When will it be published?" a student asks. 

"I'm not sure if it will," I answer.

"Are you serious?" another one responds.  "So we might work hard on this and only face defeat." 

I explain in the best terms possible that life is often like that - hard work filled with small failures that, over time, become something great.  I even drop down to the level of a football analogy, suggesting that even the greatest team will lose some games. 

I'm not surprised by the reaction.  It's the same one I get when I suggest that not every great junior high point guard will play for the Suns. Students have been raised under the same mythology that I heard as a child.  I think it's meant to cause hope. It is spoken with the best of intentions, I see it as something much more dangerous.  It never seems dangerous when pasted on a wall with a catchy phrase like "reach for the stars."

This myth creates false expectations and a sense of entitlement.   Many talented students believe that they will achieve all of their goals and that the world will love them.  The reality is that one's future is often determined by chance events like geography (tell a kid in Sudan that he can be anything he wants to be), a job market and personal tragedies.  In addition, this mentality teaches children that ambition is the bottom line.  Without added moral components, this is a dangeorus philosophy - one that led to the Enron collapse and the current scandals with the Patriots. 

Consider again, the idea of "reaching for the stars."  What does that really mean? If I really tried this, I would drop off the face of the Earth, revolving endlessly as a satellite, alone and isolated from community, never fulfilling my dreams. I have a hunch there are many such satellites roaming suburbia in their lonely steel cage SUVs.  Or, what if it was possible?  What if someone were to make it to the heights of human potential and reach the stars?  It would take a lifetime, end in burnout and finally death.  Again, I don't want that life. 

So, it might seem brutally honest, but I refuse to give my students that lie.  Instead, I try to teach them that they can be compassionate people, develop deep convictions, think philosophically and do something meaningful - that they can live a courageous life that is often filled with as much defeat as victory, but that, if they are paying close attention, they can learn from defeats and savor the moments of victories.