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One of the highlights from this past month that I would like to share is a talk that I gave at the Celebration for Excellence at Barnard. I was invited to give the alumni charge at a graduation event that celebrates students who belong to or self-identify as members of the following groups: C-­STEP Scholars (Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program), HEOP Scholars, (Higher Education Opportunity Program), MMUF Scholars (Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows), students of color, students with disabilities, members of the LBGTQIA community,and first-­generation college students.

For the talk, I wrote the following poem, which was dedicated to the Class of 2017 and my mentor while I was a student at Barnard, Lorrin Johnson. Lorrin was the Program Secretary for the Biology Department. I met her when I was a Lab Assistant for the Biology Department during my first year at Barnard. Not only was Lorrin someone I could talk to, but she saved me many a subway fare (back when we used tokens) with rides back to the Bronx, and thanks to her insistence, I left Barnard computer literate. Back in 1987, she said, “Maria, it’s the wave of the future. You have to become computer literate before you graduate.” She made me type my senior research project on a department computer which had a black screen, green letters, and 8-inch floppy disks. I wanted nothing to do with computers, but at her insistence, I became computer literate and it opened so many doors for me after I graduated. Lorrin’s mentoring and encouragement helped me get through my four years at Barnard and finally graduate. I also found my way back to campus during my first years of teaching and later while I was a student at Teachers College to sit in “the chair” in Lorrin’s office. Then, when I returned to Barnard as a new faculty member in 2004, Lorrin was still there. She is retired now, and as life would have it we belong to the same church, so I get to see her quite often.

In any case,  my poem is below.

If you are like me…

If you are like me, you arrived at Barnard wondering how you got in and whether you really belonged here. Meeting the other students didn’t help

If you are like me, you dove into First-year orientation with so much enthusiasm your new friends took you aside to ask if you were on drugs (For the record, I wasn’t)

If you are like me, you arrived not fully prepared for the rigors of college writing, but full of thoughts and ideas that you struggled to form in sanctioned ways upon a page.

If you are like me, you got a C on your first history paper (your best subject in high school). The pages were full of red marks and a note to buy a copy of Strunk and White. That ended thoughts of majoring in History, Political Science, Philosophy, (I could go on here.)

If you are like me, you satisfied your quantitative reasoning requirement with anything but a math course, and that eliminated majoring in Math, Economics, Chemistry, Physics (are you getting the picture here?)

If you are like me, you managed to get through Freshman Seminar and Freshman English with B’s but had such a fear of writing that you chose your major, Biology, because  you would not have to write a senior thesis

If you are like me you were never only a college student, you had family responsibilities like taking your little brother to school or working too many hours a week  to pay for things your parents could not afford

If you are like me, you found a campus job and a mentor (not necessarily a professor) who cared for you throughout your four  years, whose advice proved valuable over and over again, and who you promised to stay in touch with long after leaving Barnard

If you are like me, your grades ranged from A to F and everything in between, but grades were never a measure of how much you learned inside or outside the classroom.

If you are like me, you literally stood out in a crowd, labeled by the things that made you different from most of the other students, so everyone seemed to know you even if you weren’t always sure who you were.

If you are like me you had more than a few tears and more than a few laughs along the way, you fell in and out of love and made new friends but kept some of the old.

If you are like me, you tried new things and expanded your horizons. You delved into a class, a job, an internship, a club, research on campus or off campus, some activity that shaped your hopes and dreams for the future.

If you are like me, you found ways to practice your faith and to keep the flames of hope alive within you even though it was something your classmates seldom spoke about

If you are like me somewhere along the way you realized that you had not or could not live up to your Barnard potential. There were too many opportunities you did not take advantage of. There were too many things holding you back. The four years were just too short, but you made yourself a promise that one day you would live up to that potential.

If you are like me, despite all your efforts, you might be approaching graduation a few credits shy, and even though only you and your advisor know, you still feel like a bit of a fraud at the idea of donning your cap and gown and walking across the stage

But you are not like me. You are incomparable and extraordinary, gifted with your own blend of bold and beautiful, your own challenges, your own struggles, and your own triumphs.

Maybe you experienced some of what I experienced, or maybe you did not. Either way, I am here to remind you that graduation is just a beginning,  and I want to challenge you to gather up all the threads of your experiences here at Barnard and own each and every one of them.

The engaging ones, the marginalizing ones, the painful ones, the inspiring ones, the difficult ones, the joyful ones, the creative ones, the boring ones, the ones that made you doubt yourself and the ones that have just begun to show you what you are capable of

The moments of isolation and the moments of solidarity, the times you were afraid and the time you were unafraid, the times you followed, the times you led, the times you stayed silent, and the times you spoke out bravely

Own these threads and take them with you. But know that these threads are also ones that bind us together here in this moment and into the future as Barnard alumni

I stand here before you today an accomplished writer, a tenured professor at Barnard, the Chair of the Education Program, an Associate Editor of the top journal in my field, an elected  member of the Board of Directors for my International Organization, a wife of almost thirty years, mother of three children, a woman of faith, a cancer survivor, a proud Latina alumna, and co-fund chair for the class of 1988

The path from my Barnard commencement to this moment was by no means smooth or direct, but here I am. And here you are

You will leave Barnard and find your own way in the world, but Barnard will never leave you. These four years will continue to shape and form the person you are becoming long after you leave.

So hold your head high, do not be ashamed of coming up short or taking the long and winding path. It took me 25 years and I’m not done yet!

Keep coming back to Barnard, in person or virtually, and despite how imperfect your time here might have been, continue to give back from what little you may have in gratitude for what these four years have been and will be for you

The beginning of the rest of your life

Thank you

MSRM 5/16/17

For years now, progressive educators have been questioning the widespread belief that America is a meritocracy. A meritocracy may be defined as, “A government or society in which citizens who display superior achievement are rewarded with positions of leadership. In a meritocracy, all citizens have the opportunity to be recognized and advanced in proportion to their abilities and accomplishments.”[i]

Michael Young, who first used the term, meritocracy, in 1958, had a simple formula: I.Q. + effort = merit. While people may disagree about the nature of merit (whether it relates to IQ, standardized test performance, school performance, talent, creativity, leadership, effort,  ability, or grit), many believe the meritocratic system works.

There are many dangers in believing that America is a meritocracy, but among the more insidious dangers is the conclusion that we should have an achievement gap.  The glaring gap in school outcomes between Black and White students and poor and rich students can be explained by differences in abilities and accomplishments. The gap between females and males in the sciences, technology fields, and income can also be explained by differences in abilities and accomplishments.

We do not need to erase the achievement gap because the gap is actually proof that our meritocratic system is working! We should make an effort to reduce the gap, after all, more children can and should be able to display superior achievement and be rewarded. Our educational system also does not identify all the best and brightest children who could achieve, but really, we cannot and should not want to eliminate the achievement gap because that would not be fair. People who do not merit rewards would then be receiving them.

Conservatives in the dominant culture assert that the achievement gap is a problem of assimilation,[ii] what schools are not doing to socialize students who are underachieving in the right attitudes, skills, and behaviors for success. Thus, schools should do more to identify gifted children early on and assimilate them, so that they can achieve. Schools also need Common Core standards so that we can be sure that all children are being held to the same expectations for academic success and schools need to do more to encourage girls and students of color in STEM fields.

Conservatives also assert that the achievement gap is a problem of deficit culture, what families are not doing to provide access to early literacy and numeracy, such as speaking and reading to their children or bringing them to museums. Families should be encouraged to support child development through high-quality caregiver-child interactions and early childhood intervention should be emphasized to address deficit cultures.

And yes, these initiatives do make a difference! Women and scholars of color can trickle into the sciences and even make their way into and through computer science, engineering, and physics degree programs. We can increase the number of high school graduates from underrepresented groups. We can point to the exceptional Black and Brown children who succeed and convince ourselves that we do have a fair, meritocratic system.

Yet as worthy and beneficial as many compensatory endeavors may be, in a meritocracy (whether it is explicitly stated or not), you cannot, will not, and ultimately, should not erase the achievement gap because there should be measurable differences in abilities and accomplishments. Anyone who is not achieving must not have the ability or not be putting forth an effort to achieve.

Reformers can say we tried hard. We set common standards and developed systems to measure student achievement. We spent (and will spend) a lot of money on school reform and efforts to leave no child behind race to the top, and ensure that every student succeeds, but differential outcomes are to be expected.

Progressives supply different arguments for why we have an achievement gap. They point to the many real obstacles that bias and poverty place in front of children who are underachieving in schools. For example, educators may ascribe a “culture of poverty” to poor students to explain why they do not achieve. The students and parents do not care about school. Students are unprepared and lacking in intellectual ability. Such deficit thinking leads to lowered expectations and a reduced sense of responsibility for change. Meanwhile, children in poverty do without many of the opportunities that wealthier students take for granted.

Progressives also point to many hidden ways that power and privilege smooth access to achievement for children who belong to the dominant culture. Ignorant of their hidden privilege, members of the dominant culture often believe that no one gave them anything.  They tried hard and they achieved solely on their merits. They deserve the rewards they are receiving.

Members of the dominant culture rarely realize the real reasons for differential achievement. Children in America do not all start from the same place, nor do they experience the same types of benefits and privileges or barriers and obstacles along the way.

Imagine a track meet in which some runners start 50 meters behind others and these runners have hurdles in their lanes while others start 50 meters ahead of the starting line and they have no hurdles. No one would think the race was fair! No one would be surprised if the runner who began the race with the 50-meter advantage and no hurdles won. If by some miracle, a runner who started 50 meters behind everyone else and had numerous hurdles to jump along the way managed to win the race, everyone would realize how truly exceptional that achievement was given the circumstances.

Why do we fail to realize how the achievement of many children who are Black and Brown is truly exceptional, or the accomplishments of children of immigrants who must learn a new language, or the success of children with disabilities or in poverty, or the perseverance of girls in exclusive STEM fields, or the leadership of women in business and politics in a social and educational system that too often starts them 50 meters behind everyone else and places so many hurdles and glass ceilings in their way? Why do you have a better chance of succeeding in Silicon Valley if you are young, White, and male?

Meritocracy is a dangerous myth that has tremendous power for those that want to believe that we have a fair social and educational system in place so that they can justify (and maintain) their power and position in society.

Meritocracy is dangerous myth that has incredible significance for the educational-industrial complex that directly profits from how we set expectations and measure the abilities and accomplishments of children— textbook companies churning out Common Core materials, standardized testing companies, test preparation companies—all so we can say we have an even playing field and fair and objective measures to determine who should go to college, or who should receive merit scholarships, or who should lead.

Meritocracy is a dangerous myth that contributes to the notion that we can create value-added algorithms that can effectively measure the impact of teachers on student achievement or the contribution of workers to a company accurately, reliably, and objectively.

Meritocracy is a dangerous myth that paradoxically engages us in thinking we are creating a fair system and trying really hard to do so while creating a system that produces exactly the opposite result in practice.

Meritocracy is a dangerous myth that focuses our attention on individual achievement and accomplishment at the expense of collective goals such as creating opportunities for each person to achieve their highest potential and live a happy, productive life, providing for the health and well-being of all people regardless of their ability to pay, or preserving the quality of air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil in which we grow our food.

Meritocracy is a dangerous myth that sadly becomes part of the ether we breathe, such that it anesthetizes us to the damage of the counternarrative that those who are not achieving are lacking somehow. They lack grit, determination, ability, growth mindsets, creativity, or merit. They had their opportunities and they either squandered them or never deserved them, to begin with. They should be happy with their place in the world.

Is a meritocracy the best or greatest good we can or should aspire to?

[i] meritocracy. (n.d.). The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Retrieved February 26, 2017, from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/meritocracy

[ii] Peter McLaren discusses these dangerous perspectives on student achievement (as problems of assimilation and deficit culture) in his foreword to Valerie Jackson-Hill and Chance W. Lewis (Eds.) (2010). Transforming teacher education: What went wrong and how can we fix it. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC. I do not ascribe to their view that teacher education is broken, but that will be another post!

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