Why Are You (Not) Picking On Me?
The Special Ones
Recently, I was asked to nominate a student to support a high-profile event.
Even at short notice, she absolutely crushed it. I knew she would. She deserved the feedback and accolades she received afterwards…they said she was inspiring, articulate, responsive, and confident. If humanity manages to save itself from itself, it will be because of young people like her.
Yet, I should have picked another.
This became more and more obvious to me as each of the platitudes came through. I have made many decisions that I have regretted through wisdom and hindsight. This is one of them. So what’s the issue? It all went very well. Didn’t everyone get what they wanted?
Do you remember when you were at school, the same kids were always asked to help the teacher? Did you notice that the same kids were always given all the special jobs, the opportunities to show guests around, to speak at assemblies, to attend special conferences or events…weren’t they often the same kids who were elected as class reps, captains, prefects, monitors and all that malarkey? Not always…but yeah…
In my haste to provide a name to support the high-profile event, my unconscious bias took over. I plucked a name from my head, someone I knew would do a good job and hit the send button.
What exactly did that outstanding student learn from the opportunity I offered? It’s difficult to answer that, but I wonder if it was very much.
After all, she has done this so many times before. Sure, she’s refined and tweaked some of her craft over the years, and she has, by now, a bank of experiences to draw upon to ensure that she can adapt to new situations and challenges. In fact, she’s probably become even more confident and assured due to being chosen.
I’m OK with that - I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t provide these opportunities to students (the opposite is true).
However, I suggest we not situate these rare opportunities with the few. When we do, it’s just another form of privilege and inequity that we are responsible for cultivating in our schools.
With a pause, I could easily have listed dozens of students who would have been equally excellent and benefitted from this opportunity.
Pareto’s Principle
The well-known Pareto Principle specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, suggesting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. This principle reminds us that the relationship between inputs and outputs is often not balanced.
However, unlike other principles, the Pareto Principle is merely an observation, not a law, so it is most useful as a starting point to explore how things are rather than what they should be.
Throughout my career, I have found that it has described so many of my own experiences: 80% of my time supporting 20% of students in my class, 80% of my time supporting 20% of staff, 80% of my time supporting 20% of parents…
Sometimes, just being aware of where my time is being expended has allowed me to rebalance or reconsider my priorities, and sometimes, it has made me feel better knowing that the disproportionate use of my energies is…well….normal!
However, when we find ourselves in situations where Pareto accurately describes where student leadership opportunities might be situated, we should be very uncomfortable: We should not tolerate a situation in which 80% of student leadership opportunities sit with 20% of students.
In fact, should we not work to create a situation where 100% of leadership opportunities are available to 100% of students?
This has to be our aim, even if we fall short.
How do we outperform Pareto?
When my shortcomings don’t get in the way, here are some of the ways that we are trying to out-perform Pareto at my school:
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We start with Diversity.
As a student, my leadership opportunities looked very similar and were few and far between. Role leadership was available through captaining sports teams, debate teams, or the student council.
These days, we have a much broader view of what student leadership might look like - senior students leading junior students, peers leading peers through service as leadership, armchair entrepreneurship, outdoor education…and so on.
With such a diverse range of opportunities, our leadership can be…
…Distributed.
Instead of waiting for a few leadership opportunities to be bestowed on the golden few, we work hard to make sure that our students can select from a wide range of activities that they enjoy, where there are opportunities to grow, and where there are pathways for students to lead. This means we are committed to finding students who might benefit from an opportunity rather than fixating on their performance.
As a school, we intentionally support students’ learning from these diverse and distributed opportunities. However, we are also mindful that we do not want to set up students to fail (or potentially waste ‘teachable’ moments), so we need to think about…
…Development.
Too often, we assume that when we give young people the opportunity to lead, they know what to do.
Some do (for various reasons), but many more do not. They eventually get there through trial and error. However, when they have access to coaches and mentors…magic happens…
With so many thriving young leaders, finding a way to honour all of their achievements becomes increasingly tricky. Do we try to distinguish everyone? Or pick out those who we think deserve…
…Distinction?
Well, our choice is that the only way to honour everyone is to treat everyone as special (even if that means no one is special!).
That does not mean that we do not seek to recognise our students, but it does mean that we do not choose to elevate the achievements of some students above others. One of the reasons why students do not put themselves forward for leadership opportunities is because they do not think they are good enough when they compare themselves to others (Imposter Syndrome?), so we want to create a culture of celebrating inputs rather than outputs.
Of course, it’s not always easy and is not a precise art. However, I believe there will always be extraordinary young people who do extraordinary things, and we sometimes just have to stand up and applaud them.
Some Questions
Really, this specific anecdote serves as another opportunity for me to reflect on how much work we (I) have to do regarding DEIJ in our schools.
I am walking myself through these questions at the moment, and I expect I am missing many more:
• How do we account for DEIJ in our leadership offer? Is it diverse enough? Is there equity? Is it inclusive? How do we know?
• How do we reduce unconscious bias when we select students for opportunities? What systems do we need to help us? How should we be accountable?
• Where might we be privileging some students above others?
• How do we choose to develop our student leaders? How do we know we are doing that well?
CAS Coordinator, IBDP Chemistry and MYP Science teacher at International School of Ulaanbaatar (ISU)
2moWell said Damian, the Pareto principle deeply resonated with me. Despite opportunities it is the same parameters which are used time and again to select the chosen few. This becomes more apparent when the school is small. A concerted move to take risks with students, shrug unconscious bias and ensure equity could be something which makes a star shine instead of being clouded into oblivion.
North London Collegiate School - Jeju
2moThis is an interesting discussion. We have some level of leadership position for almost half of our top juniors, year 6. However it still causes much concern, mainly amongst the parent body. There are arguments for having no official leadership positions, particularly at the younger (primary or prep) age.
Assistant Principal | PE Teacher| IB PYP Programme and Evaluation Leader | IB PYP Workshop Leader | Online Workshop Facilitator & Webinar Developer
2moThanks for the wake-up call, Damian. I’ve definitely been guilty of prioritizing outputs—favoring students who consistently deliver high-quality performances over those who might benefit more from the opportunity to grow. I’ve often focused on polished outcomes to avoid potential failure or embarrassment for the school (and, by extension, myself) leading me to shy away from selecting those I perceived as less likely to succeed.
Career and College Advise, UC Berkeley, Holistic Learning, Financial Literacy, FinTech, Technology
2moVery thoughtful indeed! Absoutely agree that we, as educators, ought to outperform Pereto. But I wonder if diversity is the right lens to look at this issue. The decision to pick someone for a job, to me, is primarily driven by our readiness to 'take risk'. Often we forget that, as educators, our first priority should be to provide opportunities for our students to learn, rather than just 'getting the job done'. This fundamentally involves 'risk taking'. Thus, rather than asking the question "who is likely to do this job the best?", it could be posed as 'who is likely to get the maximum learning (and succeed) from this opportunity?'. This approach could be institutionalized with principles like 'no second dips', 'circular queues' etc. This would also require some pre-work. We would want to differentiate students based on their skills and dispositions and build a 'queue of talent' for each specific type of competency. Using a simple diversity lens directly on the choice itself could (ironically) mean not recognizing the diversity of inherent competencies. A deliberate, differentiated approach would ensure that the students are matched with the right type of roles and thus able to succeed.
Vice President Operations at Shri Educare Ltd | IB Consultant, Team Leader, and Workshop Leader | Guiding Schools & Leaders in International Education Excellence
2moInsightful artical. Most often students and also adults equate leadership with position. At school we begin with leadership of self. It helps students to reflect on why teachers may select only a few students over others. Even in our report card we have added a section for students to write about their contribution to schools.