President’s Letter: The True Measure of Success

According to the late coach John Wooden, “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
 
The theme of this newsletter is college readiness/postsecondary success and rather than focusing on how to prepare our students academically in the classroom, I want to simply focus on the word success. In the world of education, data is king and schools are held to high standards of “success” based on the numbers. Every year, school districts examine the dropout rate, attendance, graduation rate and growth rate, even though we may not have a firm grip on that data set. However, as school counselors, we know that numbers do not always tell the whole story – or the true story – and by no means are data sets a fair assessment of the daily successes that our students exhibit.
 
We see success in the student who finally has the courage to stand in front of the class for a presentation or the student who makes the honor roll for the first time after years of hard work. These are the successes occurring on a daily basis in our schools that are not captured by the data on which education marks success. As counselors, we must instill that success in school, in work and in life is about attitude and maximum effort. We adults so often catch ourselves comparing our work to that of others and if we fall short, we immediately deem our work “unsuccessful.” I know that our students often feel the same way in our schools. They are told that they do not meet the mark. My question to all school counselors is: what mark must a student meet?
 
Measures of success are individualized, not universal. Students need to understand that their path and their education growth will not always mirror that of their peers, and that is all right. Not all students are going to enter a college following graduation, just as not all students will meet their annual benchmarks on standardized testing. These facts alone should not be a measure of success to our students. Learning, growing, expanding and other soft skills that are not measured on a traditional exam are how we should monitor and foster success.
 
As we continue our work of making our students into responsible citizens, we need to take every moment to praise the successes of our students. We need to encourage their growth and foster their capacity for academic and career exploration. We also need to take time to notice our students’ small victories and ensure that each and every success is noted as an important moment in their life. These victories will propel students to become their best and, I hope, find peace of mind and the self-satisfaction of knowing they are capable of great things.
 
Contact Richard Tench, WVSCA president, at Rtench@mail.kana.k12.wv.us.