I Don’t Want Much, Just Everything You Are…and a Little Bit More

“This implies, does it not, that in order to raise a generation of children who can reach their full potential, we must find a way to make their lives interesting. And the question I have for you, Mr. Hackworth, is this: Do you think that schools accomplish that? Or are they like the schools Wordsworth complained of?”

–Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age

Fifteen years after these words are written, we are still struggling to answer the question posed by Science Fiction author Neal Stephenson. Increasingly, we are finding that our American educational system does not raise a generation of children to reach their full potential; arguments about mental acuity aside, we seem to suffer from a generation of college applicants that is, well, rather uninteresting. This is not to say that there aren’t amazing students out there–there definitely are some–but they are more the exception than the rule.

To combat this, we have seen a rise in adult-driven initiatives that aim to cultivate interesting children. Although I don’t disagree with the sentiment, I do disagree with the practice. Fantastic trips and summer camps are not, in and of themselves, the problem. (Certainly, I think we have come adopt a rather distorted view of what’s important and, on some level, we’ve all heard these arguments before. Bigger is better, theater audiences want to see their money on stage, news headlines scream at us, spectacle is rampant, etc.) Rather, I take issue with the idea that many applicants try to substitute someone else’s story for their own:  time and time again, I have come across students who traveled to poor villages, or did research, or spent the summer living in European hostels and they typically tell me the same story. These students tell me the central narrative of what they were supposed to have learned or experienced on these adventures and, sometimes, force themselves to have those experiences whether they are genuine or not. Without realizing it, many of subscribed to the notion that there is a typical experience one is supposed to have in the Costa Rican jungles and they recount this like it was the most magical awakening. And, to be fair, it might have been, but I would argue that the shift in perspective is only part of it–everyone goes through an awakening at some point in his or her life–what I want from students is to understand what this change wrought in them. How did you learn something that forever changed the way that you saw the world, such that you couldn’t ever go back?

Or we extol the virtues of Boredom as a provider of quiet spaces free from stimulation, forgetting that, with the incredible, restless youth have also managed to enact incredible amounts of destruction. The practices of contemplation, introspection, and awareness can result from boredom but we are mistaken if we consider boredom to be a prerequisite.

Ultimately, I think that teaching kids to cultivate a passion is not the same as demanding mastery–sure, passion may lead to mastery and I’m not trying to stifle that process–but all I really want is for a student to want to be smarter, to be braver, to be more inquisitive. Simply put, all I really want is for a student to want to be more. If this is our goal, the trips and the flashy photos and the houses built all melt away for we see that we can have–that we do have–meaningful experiences every day. We don’t need to “discover” hidden truths but we do need to reconsider what’s happening around, to, and in us. I think we need to train kids how to understand the import of their “normal” lives and, perhaps more importantly, how to translate these lessons learned into purposeful action.