Wise words from retiring high school principal
I enjoyed this interview with retiring New Canaan High School principal Tony Pavia:
We have a substantial group of parents who do not want their kids to experience any hardship, whether it’s in the form of a grade, a disciplinary consequence, or in the form of disappointment. They’re well intentioned, but sometimes, in trying to do all that for their child, they’re removing the very things that would be formative experiences, and the very things that would make that child more resilient, tougher and more able to deal with adversity.
I really think we are in danger of heading toward a place where kids have no adversity, and I worry that we’ve come to a point where [administrators are] going be spending more time with parents than with their kids…. [W]hen you look at some other generations, the very things that were difficult and unfair and tough and made them sad are the things that made them successful later.
The old paradigm was that society, parents and the school, in general, stressed an endgame that was about the student being a well-rounded person and citizen of society. Unfortunately, now the paradigm has changed. The endgame is very simply college and, in my opinion, it has created a terrible system which really expects every single kid to be exactly the same, to learn the same way, and to be at the identical developmental stage as everyone else.
There are countless stories of successful people — CEOs, presidents of the United States, world leaders — who were not successful teenagers. It’s getting to point now that if you’re an unsuccessful teenager it’s unacceptable, and that’s not based in any history, science, or anything else. Teenage years are, by nature, a time to make mistakes and not be perfect…. We want every kid to be doing nine clubs, eight sports, fourteen community service activities and getting A’s. I don’t know of any other institution that expects everybody to be exactly the same.
…[P]arents can revolt and make the point with their children that the endgame is life, not getting into college….
We’re educators first and foremost. We can’t be saying, “Do your homework because you’re not going to get into a good college.” We can’t buy into that. We have to have conversations about why learning is important and that sometimes your grade isn’t exactly the same as learning.
The politics of education makes that difficult now because it’s reduced the conversation to standardized test scores.
Posted by James on Wednesday, November 24, 2010