hmm… achievement?

We educators know about the achievement gap—the regularly demonstrated fact that certain disadvantaged groups of people perform far worse in school. We are very noble in our sentiments about this. We know it is unfair, and we vow to change it by whatever means necessary.

I think we’re missing the real achievement gap.

The real achievement gap is far more devastating in its consequences, but it hardly troubles our minds. We have largely decided to accept it. The real achievement gap is too hard for us to see because it would force us to reconceive our notion of what achievement is.

The real achievement gap is in the fact that there is enough food to end world hunger, while millions of Americans still struggle to eat. It is in the way a wealthy nation meets its needs by throwing away 99% of what it makes in the first six months. It is in our creation of technology so powerful that it can destroy the world several times over, while we feel helpless to restore environmental balance. It is in the fact that every single one of us has the capacity to share love and understanding even while many suffer widely from feelings of depression, loneliness, and alienation.

The real achievement gap is the difference between what we are and what we could be. It is the difference between what we have done and what we could do. Or even what we try to do.

We worry so much about the students who are dropping out of school. Maybe we should worry about the students who are succeeding while their classmates flounder. Do they know what is happening? Do they care? Could they do anything about it? Are we asking them to? What is the difference between their potential for building a supportive community and their efforts to build it?

You see, it’s very easy for educated people like me to get sensitive to the “needs” of others. But what stark deficiency lies in our own hearts that permits us to build careers, take vacations, raise our own children to distinction, and live heedless of our damage while others look on, enviously?

I don’t know.

Tags: community, education, love