Success Stories

Success - Its Faceted Face

We all know how to define success, and we certainly know it when we see it, right? Well, maybe not! The truth of the matter is that success has many facets. Depending on one’s perspective, a success can be viewed as a failure, or a failure as a success. As teachers in Adult Education, one of our jobs is to help our students understand this seeming paradox and, indeed, to be mindful of it ourselves.

Let’s look at a few examples:

1. Tuesday morning Sara arrived in class rather dejected. She worked for two hours on her math homework, but she’s not satisfied that she got the right answers. Despite the fact that we solved several of these ‘Find the Distance Between Two Points’ problems in class yesterday, Sara still has the feeling that she did something wrong. Could we PLEASE go over the homework on the board? Of course we can. And that’s when we discover what’s causing Sara’s unease. “Why did you call THAT point the sub-1 point, and the other the sub-2 point? How did you know which was which?” All of Sara’s answers were correct. The other students in the class thought Sara a great success. But Sara didn’t feel that way when she arrived. She was unsure of her technique, and therefore unsure of her success.

Furthermore, I was now uneasy about my own success at teaching the ‘Distance Between Two Points’ concepts. Sure, Sara, and a couple of other students, had gotten all the correct answers. But the idea that the distance between point sub-1 and point sub-2 is exactly the same as the distance between point sub-2 and point sub-1, had escaped them. It doesn’t matter which is which. How could I have failed to make that clear? Was I a success? Hmmmmmmm.

2. The last time I saw Jose he couldn’t have been happier. It was his 18th birthday. He’d just landed a job as a bagger at the local grocery store. One of his goals when he registered was to get a job. Success! The store was going to pay him nearly $6 per hour…and he could get a promotion later! Since he’d be working 40 hours per week, and since it was a tiring job, Jose informed me that he would have to drop out of the GED class ‘for now.’

It’s been almost a year. He has not returned. He felt so successful when he walked out that day. I wonder how he feels now? I wonder if he understands yet why I was so insistent on his sticking with the GED? I wonder if he realizes that even if he’s making $7 now, it’s not enough to support himself. I wonder if he remembers those lessons where we covered the cost of transportation, housing, clothing, etc.? I wonder if I could have done more to convince him, and the rest of my students, how important education is to long-term success? Hmmmmmmm.

3. Ricardo is in my English class. He works very hard. He rarely misses a class. He tries to speak English all the time. Even during our classroom breaks, when a lot of the students slip back into their native tongue, Ricardo stays with English. His vocabulary is becoming much more extensive. With some effort, he is always able to make me understand what he’s trying to communicate, even on the more esoteric topics. He’s first to raise his hand to answer questions, and first to volunteer to go to the board. He’s by no means fluent in English yet, but he’s my model student. Clearly a success to me.

But he sees success from his own perspective. Even though he recognizes his improvement, it’s not enough for him. He realizes that in order to significantly enhance his standing in this country, his English must get much better. He gets frustrated when I remind him again of something that we’ve covered a few times in the past. No matter that I explain how difficult English is, and how it takes years to master, Ricardo wants it all now. I have to be careful when I push other students to work harder and do more, that Ricardo understands those admonitions don’t apply as much to him. His idea of success is different from mine. Hmmmmmmm.

In each example I’ve given you the student’s view and my own. In each case those views are different because we each have a different perspective on the same story. I’m sure that if you, dear reader, and I sat down together, you’d add your own perspective to the above, and it might be different from what’s been said here. Likewise, you have many of your own success stories to tell from your classroom experiences, and if we were to discuss the details of those, I’d likely see the ‘success’ in a different light than you. And that’s exactly the point.

In our role as teacher we must be careful to view our successes, and those of our students, not just from our own perspective, but from theirs as well. And we must be prepared to share those views without being too judgmental. All of our students, by definition, are considered adults. We may have an opinion of success that is different from theirs. We may, and certainly should, advise them. But we must also be careful not to be too dogmatic. Their view of success is coming from a completely different perspective.

Thomas D. Enright has an M.B.A. in management and finance from the University of Colorado. He currently teaches daytime ABE/GED and evening ESL at the Northview Center in Universal City for the Comal, Guadalupe and Kendall Counties Adult Education Cooperative.