The fifth grade classroom had maybe twelve students in it. They were of varying race, ethnicity and gender. The tie binding them together was a shared desire to go to college. At least, a desire on the part of their families: Parents had signed each up for an afterschool program called “Kids 2 College.” As a student at Wesleyan University, it was my responsibility to mentor them by performing mathematics tutoring--while vocally promoting the amazing power of attending college.
On my first day as a tutor, I stood at the door with the teacher of these students by my side. Privately, she pointed to each student, one by one, voluntarily sharing her sentiments on who she believed would “make it.” Immediately, my mind raced. I began to wonder how many teachers over the course of my career did the same. What sort of odds did they place on my young head?
I couldn’t help but ask this teacher why she felt the way that she did. She provided me with a number of reasons, all of which settled on the fact that she did not believe these particular children had the support from their family essential to their success. Though I understood her sentiment, the fact that these supposedly unguided parents enrolled their children in this program seemed to me a step in the right direction. Moreover, it was now our responsibility to provide each child with the level of attention and care necessary to fulfill the goals of the program.
Unsettled, I spent three days a week that semester focusing on exactly those whom the teacher identified as “not going to make it.” In doing so, I discovered a commonality between all these children. None believed that they were “deserving” of a college education, because they did not know anyone around them they believed would “benefit” from this education. Several believed they were in the program simply to pass time, because their single parent had to work. The more I spoke to the students individually, the more I realized how similar our experiences were. Low expectations from institutions had caused a failure to strive. But the one fundamental difference between my story and theirs, is that my single parent believed I could accomplish virtually anything--and told me so.
The responsibilities we carried as tutors grew to include much greater tasks than simply helping divide large numbers, or round to the nearest tenth. We became responsible for aiding the reprogramming of eleven or more years of negative assumption. We had to hope that our brief efforts could stand up against parents who were seemingly uninterested in their academic endeavors. I began to think that these sentiments about failure functioned in the young students’ lives like a cancer. The chemotherapy—their parents’ encouragement—did not exist to rid their little bodies of this debilitating disease.
The other lesson I learned as tutor and mentor to these fifth-graders was how to understand academic privilege. Simply put, not everyone views their educational opportunities with the same value that others do. Some individuals do not believe that they are capable, simply because they have never been told they are. Others are told about their capability constantly, and conform to expectation.
I must admit that I am terrified of failure. I have failed at certain tasks in my life, and though I was able to learn from these experiences, the fear remains. And while schoolteachers might have marked my head for failure, I had been conditioned by upbringing to be calculating. When I see early inadequacies as a result of my decision-making, I’m already worried. Some of my mentees were never told to think for themselves, and would thus be unlikely to assess their own achievement.
I was never told that failure was okay or acceptable. So while insidious sentiments made the students’ failure seem a foregone conclusion, the fact of failing scared me to embrace my mother’s expectations; not my educators’. As the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hybrid Insurance Group, I now look back on those interactions with the students during my freshman year with a strange thought: I am probably here now, simply because I never believed I could not be here. In fact, one could argue that the only reason I never believed I was destined to fail was because no one in the outside world ever brought up the idea of my success in the first place.
On my first day as a tutor, I stood at the door with the teacher of these students by my side. Privately, she pointed to each student, one by one, voluntarily sharing her sentiments on who she believed would “make it.” Immediately, my mind raced. I began to wonder how many teachers over the course of my career did the same. What sort of odds did they place on my young head?
I couldn’t help but ask this teacher why she felt the way that she did. She provided me with a number of reasons, all of which settled on the fact that she did not believe these particular children had the support from their family essential to their success. Though I understood her sentiment, the fact that these supposedly unguided parents enrolled their children in this program seemed to me a step in the right direction. Moreover, it was now our responsibility to provide each child with the level of attention and care necessary to fulfill the goals of the program.
Unsettled, I spent three days a week that semester focusing on exactly those whom the teacher identified as “not going to make it.” In doing so, I discovered a commonality between all these children. None believed that they were “deserving” of a college education, because they did not know anyone around them they believed would “benefit” from this education. Several believed they were in the program simply to pass time, because their single parent had to work. The more I spoke to the students individually, the more I realized how similar our experiences were. Low expectations from institutions had caused a failure to strive. But the one fundamental difference between my story and theirs, is that my single parent believed I could accomplish virtually anything--and told me so.
The responsibilities we carried as tutors grew to include much greater tasks than simply helping divide large numbers, or round to the nearest tenth. We became responsible for aiding the reprogramming of eleven or more years of negative assumption. We had to hope that our brief efforts could stand up against parents who were seemingly uninterested in their academic endeavors. I began to think that these sentiments about failure functioned in the young students’ lives like a cancer. The chemotherapy—their parents’ encouragement—did not exist to rid their little bodies of this debilitating disease.
The other lesson I learned as tutor and mentor to these fifth-graders was how to understand academic privilege. Simply put, not everyone views their educational opportunities with the same value that others do. Some individuals do not believe that they are capable, simply because they have never been told they are. Others are told about their capability constantly, and conform to expectation.
I must admit that I am terrified of failure. I have failed at certain tasks in my life, and though I was able to learn from these experiences, the fear remains. And while schoolteachers might have marked my head for failure, I had been conditioned by upbringing to be calculating. When I see early inadequacies as a result of my decision-making, I’m already worried. Some of my mentees were never told to think for themselves, and would thus be unlikely to assess their own achievement.
I was never told that failure was okay or acceptable. So while insidious sentiments made the students’ failure seem a foregone conclusion, the fact of failing scared me to embrace my mother’s expectations; not my educators’. As the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hybrid Insurance Group, I now look back on those interactions with the students during my freshman year with a strange thought: I am probably here now, simply because I never believed I could not be here. In fact, one could argue that the only reason I never believed I was destined to fail was because no one in the outside world ever brought up the idea of my success in the first place.