I’ve been slowly working my way through 90 applications from high school seniors who are seeking a college scholarship from a company. This is my second year doing this, and it is not easy. Sometimes it’s almost like comparing apples and oranges. To help alleviate some of this challenges this year, the scoring rubric was a little more specific. On one hand I appreciate it; on the other hand, I see how we are reinforcing the concept of “busy is better.”
The scholarship application is divided into three main categories: academic success, activities, and an essay.
Academic success considers the gpa and test scores. That sounds straightforward enough, but it’s still not easy. First, I’m showing my age, but this notion of having grade point averages over a 4.0 still baffles me. Second, all schools do not use the same grading scale and not all kids had to take standardized tests for college entry.
Further, some schools have more course options for their students than other schools. How is it fair that some students might score higher just because the school they attended had more options? I saw this with Advanced Placement classes. Plus, the options kids have now are amazing: entrepreneurship, manufacturing-related, unbelievable computer and tech courses, agriculture options.
The activities section is divided into the number of extracurricular activities, the number of volunteer activities, number of honors, and whether or not the student was employed. This is where we have added more structure into our grading. While I was very happy about that in the beginning, because it made my life easier, I started getting this sinking feeling the more I went through the applications. See, it’s much easier for me to build a spreadsheet, have a column for each type of activity, document the number in each category, and voila! I can quickly look at the numbers I’ve typed in and feed back into a new column my final score for that section. It helps me, but it also helps my scores be more aligned with the other judges.
I get it. I even like aspects of it. But, we have just glorified being busy. The more activities the student documented in each category, the higher their score would be.
But we all know that the thinner anyone, student or adult, spreads their time, the less time they are probably spending in each type of activity. It becomes the game of join-the-club-in-name-only-but-do-nothing-to-really-contribute. Sad.
Then I get to the essays. Several students have mentioned things like creativity or problem-solving. Good. I’m glad to see that.
Except the busier their lives are, which we seem to be saying is a good thing, the more their lifestyles interferes with the creativity and problem-solving. Anyone who has researched or spent time meditating or practicing mindfulness can tell you this.
Why are we doing this?
Some would say, “Well, if you’re just counting, it’s an objective comparison.” Yes and no. It’s still subjective whether an activity truly “counts” in a category or not.
But it’s this “counting” or quantitative mentality that has driven this culture.
I am only partially through the book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport (but so far, I recommend it). He calls all of this nonsense “pseudo-productivity.” This is “the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort.” We end up using this pseudo-productivity especially when trying to measure the productivity of knowledge workers. Students certainly fall into this category!
“It’s hard to overemphasize how unusual it is that an economic sector as large as knowledge work lacks useful standard definitions of productivity. in most every other area of our economy, not only is productivity a well-defined concept, but it’s often central to how work unfolds” (p. 26).
He goes on to explain that to a farmer, productivity is measured by how much food is produced from a parcel of land. You can measure success by inputs (seeds) and outputs (harvest).
Productivity in manufacturing can be measured by widgets produced, amount of waste of raw materials, energy consumed… all measurable pieces in mass produced scenarios.
But, what does “productive” or “successful” mean in today’s society to knowledge workers?
Is it number of emails answered or calls taken in the office?
Is it number of meetings attended?
Is it the gpa and test scores for students?
Is it the number of activities in which we participate? We not only see this as a measure in college and scholarship applications, but we see this in things like programs written for grants and professors’ yearly evaluations.
I bet if you’re a knowledge worker, as you read this list, you were saying to yourself, “But that doesn’t measure anything. Not all clients are the same. Not all phone calls take the same amount of time, not all aspects of a project are within our control.” And, I’d have to agree with you. Those are lousy measurements.
Newport gives many examples in his book about the innovation and creativity of “the greats” only occurring when they did fewer things.
We need innovation and creativity to flourish, so let’s quit glorifying busy.
Luckily, the business’s head of the scholarship committee was not stuck to only the numbers we plugged into our spreadsheets. She is completely open to new ways of measurement, because of all the challenges using a gpa and test score that I mentioned earlier. I brought up the topic in our meeting about the glorification of busy but admitted I don’t have a solution to suggest. Yet.
Maybe some ideas will come to me as I read Newport’s book further. Maybe more creative solutions will come to me as I just sit with it for awhile, if I don’t put my “solution” on a deadline.
As always, if you have thoughts on this subject, please, let me know.
Thanks for joining me at The Creighton Cabin as I pondered yet another topic in life. It’s nice to have a place where we can just slow down and think about things for a bit. Ask questions. Wonder. Perhaps be a bit rebellious as we go against the mainstream.
Until next time…