What can your child do better than everyone else?
As a child, I first wanted to be a professional ice hockey player, then an archaeologist, then a detective. However, I didn't have particularly good powers of observation, nor was I any good at Latin. I couldn't skate either. My mum didn't say anything; I think she didn't want to rob me of the most precious thing I had: illusions. It was the 1980s and it was assumed that everyone would get a job, even those who could do nothing but dream.
I don't remember ever talking to my mum about my abilities or, God forbid, my talents. All she said to me about my career aspirations was: Try to find something you enjoy. What she meant was: you have to do this shit for 45 years, so find something that's at least a bit of fun. If you think about it, that's pretty good advice.
Everything is liked, rated and graded. The underlying message is: you are never (good) enough. You can always work on yourself.
It all sounds a bit different today. The question «What do you like doing?» has been replaced by «What are you good at?». More precisely: «What are you better at than the others?» We live in a culture of constant judgement. Everything is liked and rated. There are recommendations, evaluations, criticism, comments, clarifications and comparisons everywhere.
My daughter's maths test not only shows her grade, the class average and a sad smiley face, no, she is also asked to do a self-assessment. How do you see yourself? Compared to the others? And where will you be next year?
We practise looking at ourselves from the outside. This is probably good for the job, but certainly bad for the soul. Because the underlying message is: you are never (good) enough. You can always work on yourself. More precisely: you can't not work on yourself. It's the winning rhetoric of excellence clusters and talent shows, in which mediocre performance, indecisive flailing around or even failure are not envisaged.
The endeavour means an eternal maintenance of motivation down to the micro-physics of our actions. After all, it is no longer just a job or basic mathematical knowledge that is being put to the test, but us as people, our identity and our being. And feedback is the currency of such self-optimisation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating unambitious mediocrity or complacency. I welcome commitment, tenacity and megalomania.
But the problem of constant judgement is yet another: what we are modelling for our children is a world in which your actions make no sense if you are not part of a resonance framework. It is the reason why people post their lives and achievements on Facebook: you are only worth something if others see it - and think it is good. This robs our children of something that we could actually learn from them: the drive to do something, not because we are good at it, but because it is important to us.
