Student Success - a broader definition.

What really constitutes success in life? Is it wealth? Power? Fame? What about happiness, or freedom, having useful occupation, or fulfilling personal relationships? There are many possible answers. In the end, it must be answered by each of us individually. Too many students reach the end of high school and have no idea what success means to them, or have someone else’s idea and think it their own. This is a poor foundation on which to build a life. A broader definition of student success must include insights obtained through a reflective process of self-discovery.

Here are three principles from which we can construct a framework for student success:

1. Diversity must be recognized as a fundamental principle – each snowflake, each fingerprint, each grain of sand, each student is a unique expression of the universe.

2. Intelligence is diverse. Each child develops an array of intelligences that are expressed in multiple ways of being smart.

3. Students must be supported in a process of self-discovery that enables them to make sense of their world, and helps them to achieve their personal visions of success.

Much work remains to be done in shaping these principles into a tangible vision of student success. Inherent in the principles are the seeds of social justice and transformative design that will situate the student squarely at the center of the educational universe.