Making Mediocrity Acceptable

“Just remember; 50% is a pass, 51% is a distinction.”

This was the joke to which we all clung at university when we quaked at the thought of the three hour exam we were about to write. Now, what if I change the sentence to: “Just remember, 30% is a pass, 31% is a distinction”? It doesn’t sound like a joke, does it? It just sounds absurd. How on earth does getting 30% as your final mark in a subject mean you pass, you may ask. But that is exactly what you need to get in Matric (grade 12) in South Africa at the moment to pass. Let me just make that clear – of your six subjects in you final year of school, you need 30% in 3 subjects and 40% in 3 subjects to pass and receive your National Senior Certificate. And no, I am not counting “Life Orientation” as a subject – I am focusing simply on the six main academic subjects.

Each year the results are released I hang my head in shame, because I know the figures. Half of the children who start grade 1 never finish Matric. Of those who write Matric only some 70% pass. And, yet, again and again it is reiterated that the pass rate is fair. With these words thousands of students are made complacent into believing that only knowing 30% of your set work is good enough. You do not need to aim for 100%. You do not even have to aim for 50%. Only aim for 30% – and, don’t worry, your marks may even be adjusted if it is deemed that the exam was too difficult! Aim for 30% - we don’t expect more from you. By Jove! We don’t really think you could do better anyway.

Everyone is exceptional...

What worries me – truly worries me – is that generations of students are leaving high school with a bar set so low that they do not believe that they need to aim higher – and I do not mean this only academically. The lowest bar is good enough. Just getting through on the minimum is good enough. Lowering the bar to include everyone - God forbid anyone should feel ‘left out’ or that they ‘aren’t good enough’ or even have to exert themselves more than the bare minimum – is, in fact, doing a disservice to those same students. I also believe that the department is underestimating how great these students can be. They are practically telling the students that they do not expect them to be able to do better than these minimum standards. That 30% are the best they can hope for, so why set the bar higher?

In grade 5 or 6 we read the book Stories from Different Genres – a collection of short stories I enjoyed immensely. One story that haunted me – even more than the sight in my mind’s eye of a man being eaten alive by giant snails*  - was "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in which people had to wear masks, weights and even have to hide their intelligence and talents so that they would all be equal^†. No one may be more beautiful, more talented, or more intelligent than anyone else. The world sketched in that story scared me more that all the horror tales in that book put together.

Yet the setting of such a low bar and telling people that it is fine and dandy to scrape by is already creeping towards that mentality that everyone should be included and that no one should feel that they had failed – even when they haven’t even tried. From there it is not too far a jump to a world where you are encouraged not to do your best. 

These students go on to university or college and have to be taught simple tasks like writing a paragraph – never mind writing an academic essay. Having to do your own research is met by many (most?) simply cutting and pasting badly written bits and pieces from unreliable websites. At the same time, faculties are pushed to pass most, if not all the students in a class. Again the bar is lowered. And again we are told that this is all well and good and that, if you argue against this, it is you who are in the wrong and just don’t want people to succeed. But what happens when these students enter the workplace? Will they expect the bar to still be set at 30%? Will the least amount of work be deemed “more than good enough” by them? Will mediocre be the most they will strive to be? I truly hope that this is not the case.

*This story is The Quest for the “Blank Claveringi” by Patricia Highsmith. It was weird and gruesome and I loved it. Go figure.

^† Do yourself a favour and read this classic piece.

** This piece first appeared on Storylane. Some minor changes were made before being published here.