Identity Crisis or Ability Crisis?

There’s going to be a day when I wake up and I’ll pack up my shoes and I’ll be done…I don’t want to go and run a 21 minute 5K.

                                    Sheri Piers, 41 year old American elite runner

If you have run a 5K and you’re over the age of 30, or even if you’re not, you know that running 3.1 miles in 21 minutes, in which you would run each mile in less than seven minutes, is pretty great.  Depending on how big your local race is and who competes, it’s certainly possible, even likely, that you would win your age group, especially if you are a woman. 

I myself have barely scraped under 27 minutes, and that was just once, on a course that was probably short.  Now, I realize it’s completely unfair to compare myself to Sheri Piers, who was recently on the cover of Running Times (www.runningtimes.com), and the top American finisher at the Boston Marathon last year.   It’s like comparing most high school swimmers to Elizabeth Beisel or local softball players to the Boston Red Sox.  We are engaging in the same sport, but it’s at completely different levels.  That’s not my real objection to Piers’ comment.

Instead, I wonder at someone who would give up a thing that is a huge part of her identity and life—she runs between 90-130 miles a week and only takes a couple of days off a year—because she couldn’t run a certain time. 

In contrast, the next article in that issue of Running Times had exactly the opposite message.  David Alm writes about what he learned from training for a week before a half-marathon (13.1 miles) with some of the fastest runners in the world, mostly from Kenya and Ethiopia.  David knew he couldn’t keep up with them, but these runners didn’t treat him any differently.  The race was hot, hilly, and grueling, and everybody ran slower times than they were used to.  You’d expect elite athletes to be very disappointed—after all, these times are of public record and can have an impact on sponsorships. Instead, David writes, “But to them, none of that mattered.  Our times were numbers, nothing more.  And no one seemed disappointed—with themselves or with me.”  In contrast, when Piers had a bad race, she said, “I was so sad, and so mad.  I just felt like it was my last chance to do it.  Being in the shape of your life doesn’t happen all the time.” 

I wonder if Sheri’s all-or-nothing attitude, reflective of American ideals, is one reason why many students don’t feel valued in schools.  They know they are measured by their scores on tests.  As Ernest Morrell told 200+ English teachers today at Rhode Island College, kids know that education is valuable.  What they don’t know is how valuable they are.  Morrell argues that we don’t have an ability crisis; instead we have an identity crisis.  Motivation is the result of value (kids valuing what they are learning) plus expectancy (they believe they can succeed). 

It seems that Sheri Piers, who is not just a runner, but a parent, partner, and nurse practitioner, connects a certain 5K time to her self-worth.  While I admire her work ethic, stamina, and commitment, I hope that she won’t give up running just because she might lose a race to the likes of me. 

Unfortunately, this same kind of narrow measuring stick is at work in our schools.  I hope that students are given the message that standardized tests, and even course grades, unfold within a larger context; some of which they have control over, and some of which they do not.  Performance on those arbiters is not just about effort and ability—there is always a complexity of factors at work. 

And I hope teachers understand these same complexities.  Of course, we must always do our best to ensure our kids’ learning through motivation, engagement, and the teaching of necessary skills.  But we can’t lose sight of how, as the African runners suggest, we must value every runner’s [student’s] efforts, success, and potential.