by Chris Moses
After a particularly long week and while in a somewhat cheeky mood, I remarked to a group of Principal friends that I would really love to have a school full of average, just entirely, wonderfully, completely average – students.
While my words sprang from some incidental and long-forgotten frustrations, with that quip, I believe I stumbled upon a valuable insight that I’ve been mulling ever since. I know! Imagine advertising to parents or telling a board, I’m here to inspire an average school full of average… I wouldn’t even be able to finish my sentence before being shown the door.
A caring soul might console, everyone is special; a more critical one chastise, second place is the first loser.
Yet average as the mean has its place in classical philosophical traditions, an imperative from Aristotle and Confucius alike. Mathematically, statistically, we love averages too, from temperatures to travel times. The middle ground helps us find a middle way through extremes, to forecast and forebear.
Still, as a matter of academic performance, most anyone would chafe at such a descriptor. Fifty-fifty sounds terrible. But I recall Roger Federer’s tremendous commencement address at Dartmouth, reflecting on his achievements as one of, if not the greatest, tennis players of all time: “What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches?”
After a breath, he replied: “Only 54 percent.”
Ace or double fault, Federer reminded graduates, you need to move on and play the next point like it’s the only point.
Still, for a school, for education?
Avoiding average comes at a cost, and I believe a dear one for school leaders. The most basic insight is unoriginal: if everyone is exceptional, does exceptional mean anything?
Of course, there can be a great diversity of talents and a high concentration of high achievers. But as a matter of self-worth, and self-understanding, average too has exemplary importance.
First: Context and Perspective Matter.
Among elementary school students, I’m probably pretty good at math. At MIT? Ha!
With whom and how we make comparisons must be forefront in any sort of assessment, even supposedly objective measures like standardised examination scores.
I remember a student coming to me in tears after starting my advanced literature course. She had gotten a 35 or 36 on the ACT – essentially a perfect score – yet, she said, she found the difficulty of a text overwhelming. I explained, I had no doubt that she had the intelligence and capability to succeed, but in the context of a truly demanding learning environment, the ACT didn’t measure all that much.
A sense of discernment and judgment must inform, with honesty and modesty, how we accept (or don’t) the reference points used to assess where any one person may stand in any given area, or “overall,” if that’s even conceptually possible.
Second: We Need Honesty about What Achievement Means.
If students don’t face appropriate, progressive, and proportionate challenges, they will miss out on the sort of discovery and mastery that truly matter. More so, we will all mistake quantity for quality.
Recently, I’ve been contemplating the insights of Becca Rothfeld’s All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess. She argues not that we have too much, but rather we have too much of things that don’t matter, and far too little of what does: liberatory love, riveting refinement, original invention.
Third: Real Striving Needs Real Purpose.
I worry that in the rat race for distinction, far too many talents get squandered on yet another resume-building class or activity. First, as much as we might profess an encouragement of failure, or risk-taking, kids see through to the truth of how they will be judged in the future. Second, even if they “win,” even if they get the A* or whatever, the victory brings hollowness rather than fulfilment. Without clarity or purpose, competition loses the potential it might have to inspire or empower.
I fear too that amidst all the talk of grit and resilience, more and more often when students face real challenges, or seek moral and ethical clarity, they revert to solipsism rather than a deep understanding of what ought to be defended or protested, and how it ought to be done.
Where does that leave us?
We need to conceptualize success or achievement as a broad, uneven, multi-dimensional trajectory rather than an end-of-term mark, leadership award, or admission to a prestigious college, however great that challenge, and even while accepting that, pragmatically, we still need tests and transcripts and excellent outcomes if a school wishes to thrive institutionally. I hope amidst all these pressures, students can find a sense of confidence that emanates from within, that has been cultivated through meaningful, original experiences that contribute to a robust narrative of who they are as a person, including much about which they are proudly, triumphantly average. In the end, from that more philosophical mean, the only average you’ve got to worry about is your own, and the genuine kindness with which you struggle to treat yourself and others.
Christopher Moses, Foreign Principal, Shanghai Hongrun Boyuan School
LYIS is proud to partner with WildChina Education
