Success is sweet—thanks E. Dickinson

Shouldn't we make sure to remember our kids' wins?

Sometimes I fear that we—”we” means folks who are concerned about our kids—get lost in thinking about the problems they and we encounter on a way-frequent basis. We spend too much time discussing, reflecting, or thinking about their disabilities and too little time reflecting on their successes and accomplishments.

In this brief editorial post, I’m simply explaining some of my ideas about the importance of celebrating successes.

As I was driving the old-new T-bird recently, I went past the front of a neighborhood school where in the early 1980s, sitting on a curb in front of that school, I had showed a young boy a strategy for writing correct answers to simple division “facts.” In a previous post here on Special Education Today, I noted my subjective, qualitative experience of that learner’s having what we might call an “Aha” moment, my interpretation of events that we documented in cold, hard, scientific terms (Lloyd et al., 1981).¹

As I drove by that spot and contemplated the memory of that boy’s joy about “getting it,” I also remembered a Unicef video I’d seen much more recently that emphasized kids with disabilities succeeding. It was about children in the Philippines, but it seemed pretty universal to me. I found it, and here it is:

I often recite the beginning of a very famous poem by Emily Dickinson.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

As I recite it, I frequently change the word “ne’er” to “rare.” One has to have some successes, it seems to me, to be able to count them.² But, the phrases of the poem provide valuable context for examining the successes our kids have. If one has a disability, those “wins” may seem really “hard won.” Let’s celebrate!³

So, my take-away from my experience is multi-faceted. A couple of those facets are important for us—teachers, parents, administrators: Remember that

1. Our kids, youths, and adults succeed,

2. There’s value in emphasizing their “wins” and strengths, and

3. We must diligently pursue ways to help them achieve.

If you have success stories, I hope you’ll share them.

Reference

Lloyd, J., Saltzman, N. J., & Kauffman, J. M. (1981). Predictable generalization in academic learning as a result of preskills and strategy training. Learning Disability Quarterly, 4(2), 203-216.

Footnotes

1. Loyal reader of SET, Nancy S. will recall this boy, because she collaborated on the study (Lloyd et al., 1981). I don’t think she was present for the boy’s “aha moment,” but she saw these students go from “don’t know” to “I can do this!” Seeing kids learn things is still very joy-inducing for me.

2. To be sure, savvy readers may question and quibble about the larger meaning of Emily Dickinson’s poem, that it doesn’t apply here. I’m just using the first stanza to underscore the point about the importance of our kids’ successes.

3. And let’s celebrate even if the celebration constitutes that cold, prickly, mechanical reinforcement that some of us (and many of our detractors) consider inhumane and inappropriate, wishing we’d stop saying “good job!”