Knowledge & Success

In a recent Globe & Mail, there was a provocative piece on success in education entitled An A+ Student Regrets his Grades by an undergraduate student at Queen’s. It is a great piece and I recommend it as delicious food for thought.

Great schools (and other organizations for that matter) are driven by a crystal clear sense of purpose or mission. I’ve had many conversations with colleagues in schools and universities who have shifted from the private sector, and how many of them take a while to adjust to relative ambiguity of the definition of success in education (i.e. not the clarity of shareholder value or profit.)

We have a most ambitious mission at Appleby:

To educate and enable young men and women to become leaders of character, major contributors to, and valued representatives of their local, national and international communities.

If you believe that this is more than lofty marketing, and really focus on its core meaning, there are two overlying conclusions. The first is that we are in an endeavor, like parenting, where the measure of success is not taken at age 19 or 25. It is best taken at age 45 or 75.

The second reminds me of something my first year Geology professor told our first-year engineering class back in September, 1982. Dr. John "Hockey Stick" Hanes (named because he has been using a big hockey goalie stick as his pointer in class for decades) is a classic geologist – long hair, plaid shirt, seemingly happier outdoor than in. His words are crystal clear and stick with me 30 years later. He told us that the details of what he was going to teach us we will most likely forget within a few short years. But what will stick with us is a way of thinking – an orientation to being a problem-solver, including understanding and using data, applying creativity to coming up with new solutions to the society’s challenges, and having the management skills to make it happen. He was right.

The second conclusion from the Globe story is another version of what Hockey Stick Hanes was saying. In a 25 or 50-year horizon, while knowledge is important, there are other attributes that will likely be far more important in achieving success – things like ethics, teaming ability, creativity, critical thinking, communication, resilience, persistence, courage and empathy. Of course, a perfect scenario is having students graduate from Appleby with all of these (and more) as well as high marks. But in some ways these are in tension. If a school produces graduates with high marks but little depth in these broader attributes, then we have not really succeeded.

Over the next couple of years, I would love to hear the thoughts of alumni, parents, faculty & staff, and students on the following questions: 1) How you think success should best be defined 25 years out? 2) What are the most important timeless attributes that define “leaders of character, major contributors to, and valued representatives of their local, national and international communities?” and 3) How should we best balance out the multiple goods in tension?