David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Pluck vs. Luck
This post is a piece I recently published in Aeon. Here’s the link to the original. I wrote this after years of futile efforts to get Stanford students to think critically about how they got to their current location at the top of the meritocracy. It was nearly impossible to get students to consider that their path to Palo Alto might have been the result of anything but smarts and hard work. Luck of birth never seemed to be a major factor in the stories they told about how they got here. I can understand this, since I’ve spent a lifetime patting myself on the back for my own academic accomplishments, feeling sorry for the poor bastards who didn’t have what it took to climb the academic ladder.
But in recent years, I have come to spend a lot of time thinking critically about the nature of the American meritocracy. I’ve published a few pieces here on the subject, in which I explore the way in which this process of allocating status through academic achievement constitutes a nearly perfect system for reproducing social inequality — protected by a solid cover of legitimacy. The story it tells to everyone in society, winners and losers alike, is that you got what you deserved.
So I started telling students my own story about how I got to Stanford — in two contrasting versions. One is a traditional account of climbing the ladder through skill and grit, a story of merit rewarded. The other is a more realistic account of getting ahead by leveraging family advantage, a story of having the right parents.
See what you think.
Pluck vs. Luck
Occupants of the American meritocracy are accustomed to telling stirring stories about their lives. The standard one is a comforting tale about grit in the face of adversity – overcoming obstacles, honing skills, working hard – which then inevitably affords entry to the Promised Land. Once you have established yourself in the upper reaches of the occupational pyramid, this story of virtue rewarded rolls easily off the tongue. It makes you feel good (I got what I deserved) and it reassures others (the system really works).
But you can also tell a different story, which is more about luck than pluck, and whose driving forces are less your own skill and motivation, and more the happy circumstances you emerged from and the CONTINUE READING: David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Pluck vs. Luck | National Education Policy Center
