What exactly is the measure of success?  Is it the American Dream of the college degree, making 6 figures, owning your own home in the perfect neighborhood, and raising 2.5 children within your little nuclear family?  Is it recognition for the work you’ve done or for the goals you’ve achieved?  Is success measured by you or do you allow others to judge you based on their perception of what success means to them?

I found several definitions of success.  First, it’s the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Secondly, it’s the attainment of popularity or profit.  Success can also be the person who does what is described in the first two definitions, as in, “he is a success”.  I may be wrong, but it seems to me like a lot of people in our society judge success by the second definition.  Does the name “Kardashian” ring a bell?

In my world, I am surrounded by college graduates.  I am a college graduate. Education is important.  Many of these people have what are referred to as “terminal degrees”, in order to attain the type of position they desire.  Our society values people who attain these pieces of paper as the pinnacle of our educational system.  These are usually highly intelligent people (or people who jump through hoops well) and therefore should be respected.  Well, that’s  great and all, but I’ve met plenty of PhD’s (none of my friends of course!) who don’t have a practical/sensible bone in their body.  They’re so removed from real life that they have difficulty functioning outside of their cerebral, academic world.  Having these degrees doesn’t necessarily make them kinder, more empathetic, or more receptive to their students.  These attributes can belong to anyone, not just to academics, and who’s to say which is more successful – the person with the degree with no empathy or the person with empathy and no degree?

What if what you want to do in life requires no degree?  Are you a less successful person because of it?  After all, having a degree doesn’t make you a better person.  I have met more people who love doing service jobs, working with their hands, managing people, working outside and when they are in their element they are a joy to meet.  These are people who are the lifeblood of our society, the ones who keep things running, who work long hours for little pay with a smile on their face.  Those of us in academia tend to think, oh, they could do so much more for themselves if they could go back to school, but what if they don’t want or need to?  Not everyone is an academic.  Doesn’t mean they aren’t smart, they’re just a different kind of smart.

Howard Gardner is  theorist who believes that there are many different kinds of “smart” or multiple intelligences.  In our public schools today, if you don’t excel at either math (logical/mathematical) or reading  (verbal/linguistic) you might as well hang it up because it’s just about all you’re going to do.  And for those kids whose “smarts” do not fall into those two categories, many times they aren’t considered successful.  But a society cannot survive with only its literary and math smart people, it takes a literal village of people with different gifts, passions and skills or “smarts” for a society to succeed.  For those of you who aren’t nerds like myself, the multiple intelligences are –

• Musical/rhythmic
• Visual-spatial
• Verbal-linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Bodily-kinesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalistic
• Existential

As teachers, we’ve all met those students who struggle to read but their kinesthetic abilities are magic, and yet, we discount that gift because it’s not “academic”.  We also know those students who struggle behaviorally and yet they sparkle in art or music.  I have one student right now who has struggles with both and this past year I watched as he was the only person to develop a real relationship with a special needs student in his class.  The first time I saw the two of them together, I almost cried. Unfortunately, these don’t count because they’re not considered “academic”. If we can’t assess the student’s ability within a subject using percentages, or if the student’s percentages are low, as a society, and unfortunately, many times in education, we consider them unsuccessful or at the very least, not achieving.

So let’s go back to the original definition, the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, this time focusing on the word purpose.  This one goes right back to our gifts, passions or intelligences.  It leads us to the deeper discussion of why we’re here in the first place, and whether you want to think about this through a scientific or faith based lens, we all want, we NEED to have a purpose to be personally fulfilled and find our place in the world.   Unfortunately if that purpose doesn’t fit our neat and tidy vision of success we can cause someone to feel like a complete failure.

I have a dear friend, one that I admire greatly who has worked in the schools for many years, not labeled a “teacher”, but certainly a teacher in the way she interacts with special needs children and adults.  There is an ease with which she deals with the day in a day out struggles with some of these individuals who need extra help. I didn’t say it was easy, but she deals with whatever comes her way with grace and kindness.  Do the people she works with care if she has a degree or not?  No.  I believe all they see is there is someone who genuinely cares and will be there for them.  In her case, her success is immeasurable because taking care of others is one of the highest callings.

So many of our students are square pegs who don’t fit into the round holes of academia   and while they may work to adapt, are they really using their strengths to everyone’s  benefit?  Isn’t it time to redefine the idea of success in our schools and in our society and honor all those who follow their passion as a success in life?