Teacher’s Talking
Talk 1 | Achievement – Can I Ever Do Enough?
Social imagery is what gives people a sense of what is normal and how things are supposed to be. It includes the cultural stories, values, laws, institutions and symbols through which people in a society imagine their life together. There is no doubt that we live in a society where the good life is perceived as achievement equated with success, significance and a way to true happiness. It is important for us as teachers to critique ‘the water we swim in’ so we can help each other to navigate the educational journey with our students, for they are impacted by this story.
Competitive reality TV shows pit contestants against each other to see who, through sheer hard work and determination, can achieve better than others and win the prize. Physical fitness and participating in sport at high performance levels to transform our bodies and be the best, are held up as goals to achieve. Hard work and achievement is seen as well‑earned personal success that will bring fulfilment, affirmation and recognition. Admission to a selective school is seen as a badge of honour and a pathway to future success. Social media reinforces this mentality through comparison. Are we smarter?, prettier?, doing more?, more successful at sport or music? This is the meritocracy mentality. How are our children enculturated into this way of being? In her book, Achievement Addiction, Dr Justine Toh says, “We have all internalised this mentality to some extent, because none of us could avoid ground zero of meritocratic striving. Or if you like the crack house of achievement addiction: school.” [1]
How does our nation’s education system carry this message either explicitly or implicitly when our core business is about teaching and learning and achievement? Many of our parents who fear what the future holds, want to future‑proof their children by sending them to a school that will focus on getting academic results. Schools can be chosen based on their NAPLAN and HSC results. Year 12 students can hang all their hopes on their ATAR as if their whole future depends upon it. For them, it sends a message about their individual worth based on their performance. How will they survive in a competitive and insecure job market! Having a tertiary degree is seen as bestowing a social mobility upwards.
The assessment process and ranking that occurs in Australian schools measures one’s performance against peers. Those who have high intellectual ability and achieve the best exam results are those who are called ‘the gifted and the talented’. The virtues of achievement are communicated to us from Kindergarten to Year 12, ‘never stop striving’ and the lie ‘if you can dream it, you can achieve it.’
Achievement when it is idolatrous, that is when it bears the weight of our entire worth as human beings, it leads to pride or anxiety. Anxiety occurs when we project our idolatry into the future and wonder if we can ever do enough. After ‘Thriller’ became the best‑selling album of all time, singer Michael Jackson declared that he “would not be satisfied unless his next album sold twice as many copies.” [2] In fact, it sold 70% fewer. Most musicians would be thrilled with sales of 30 million, but for Jackson the contrast with his earlier success was stinging. Albert Camus said, “Every achievement is a burden. It compels us to higher achievement.” [3] When will the cycle end – when have we done enough to feel adequate and worthy of love and respect?
How do we, as Christian teachers, confront the idolatrous nature of achievement that permeates our culture? For all our students desire to be loved and know their life has significance. Our first point of thinking about achievement is to be drawn to the transcendent One who created each person uniquely, who bestows on each student intrinsic worth and designed them to be cultivators and caretakers of His world. Works of achievement are turned into works of love flowing from the One who is love. For we are characters in God’s great drama, and this makes all the difference. As St Augustine says, “The happy life consists simply in the possession with understanding of what is eternal.” [4]
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2: 9, 10
Grace & Peace
The Excellence Centre Team
[1] Justine Toh, Achievement Addiction, (Australia: Acorn Press, 2021), 7
[2] Dr Christopher Raczor, The Way of Achievement, (August 2023), https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/the-way-of-achievement/
[3] Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935 – 1942, (St Paul, MN: Paragon House Publishers, 1991)
[4] George Howie, St Augustine on Education, (Washington DC: Regnery, 1969). 8