Understanding Mediocrity

Understanding Mediocrity

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The popular slogan “failure is not an option” suggests teachers’ courageous commitment to their students’ successful learning.  Yet we know that failure often happens.  Repeated failures usually trigger interventions and special programs in our schools.  At the other extreme, high achievers are motivated and reinforced by a system whose DNA makes academic accomplishments the prize.  But what about the students whose average performance seldom earns recognition?   Would we support the idea that their “mediocrity is not an option”?     

Even the dictionary doesn’t know what to do with the term “mediocrity”.   One meaning is adequate or ordinary, but another is poor or inferior.    Being mediocre offers a devious combination of justifications.  Its circumstances change depending on the stakes, the skills or activity we are looking at, who is being compared to whom, and whether the performance is adequate, marginal, or poor.   

Management consultant Mark Friedman says there are three ways to compare our performance -- to ourselves, to others, and to standards.  Each one offers a different viewpoint.

I really enjoy swimming.  When I swim laps in a pool, I keep track of my time.  When it improves, I reward myself with something sweet.  Mediocrity means nothing until I compare myself to others.   If I were to dive off the blocks in competition with Michael Phelps, I would choke on his wake.  Chances are I would finish the race eventually, not failing, which would probably mean drowning, but as an example of mediocrity.   Millions of others would share my fate.

Standards also define performance.  As a five-year-old, my son set the 50-yard freestyle record in his age group by thrashing up and down the pool at SUNY Albany. For his parents he was outstanding, but compared to any other age group’s standards, he was mediocre.  At least in sports, the benchmarks are essentially records.

 Not so in school, where teachers tend to set their own standards by subject, grade level, and track, although the use of descriptive rubrics and criterion-referenced exams has helped clarify matters.  Because there is no consensus on standards of mediocrity, a “C” grade can mean just about anything.  Regents exams and the SAT or ACT provide standard anchors, but they hardly predict the performance of average learners.      

Teamwork and group projects add another confounding link between accountability and mediocrity.  Either on the assembly line or in school, even when roles and goals are assigned, some individuals slough off.   If the project is completed and production targets are met, the phenomenon of mediocre engagement may frustrate the achievers, but unless separate ratings for each team member are included (wise teachers do this), the lesser performers slide by.

Statistics and social beliefs impinge on mediocrity.  Educators find the distribution of students in a classroom a natural fact of life represented by a bell-shaped curve.  Performance and talent are thought to be concentrated in the middle, while the top and bottom extremes number far fewer at the two ends of the curve.  Thereby we define ability grouping, tracking, and the like as a convenient but terribly inequitable means of organizing instruction.   

Nowhere is the impact of mediocrity more pronounced than in the use of A-F or numerical grades in our schools.  To get their work done, and to remain accountable to the system, teachers aim for the middle.  Despite efforts to differentiate instruction, and despite successful models like individual learning plans for children with disabilities, most teachers have to adjust lesson quality and rigor by giving the broadest support to the most students.  Accordingly, not only students, but teachers too, are blamed for being mediocre.  

Do we chafe against mediocrity?  Unsurprisingly, yes.  Often it carries a belittling connotation.  Our society celebrates accomplishments.  The deluge of worldwide news publicizes the extremes or the unusual.  Mediocrity is not newsworthy so it is often neglected.  

Public schools are wonderful starting points for reversing the negative effects of society’s mediocrity.  The meritocracy of schools can make middling or average performers feel lost in the crowd.  To counteract this, our teachers can use small-group instruction, cooperative learning, alternative or informal assessments, unique and progress-focused rewards and recognition, and projects that encourage individual curiosity and creativity.

 These days school districts recognize the importance of a culture of positive engagement.  Programs and activities encourage the interests and inspirations of the students.  Teachers committed to the success of all students can offer continuous, constructive feedback on academic work.  They can and should attend to diversity and social intelligence, while promoting a safe and supportive community environment.  When the groundwork is laid, mediocrity in school and in life afterward need not be an option.