“REALIZE THEIR FULL POTENTIAL”
Re-framing what "potential" is and how to maximize it
“REALIZE THEIR FULL POTENTIAL” is one of the most frequent phrases educators use when they talk about their goals for students—and among the least well-defined.?The phrase is employed, typically, at the beginning or end of a list of things that educators want for kids—or think we should help them do. E.g.?
·??????We want them to “learn, improve the world, and realize their full potential as human beings.”
·??????We want them to “maximize their human potential, discover their purpose, build their passions, contribute meaningfully, and understand different perspectives.”
·??????“We need all humans to build passions and develop their full human potential.”
·??????“We need them to “Discover and build their passions, understand what it takes to pursue what they want, learn how they can contribute value to society, and fulfill their human potential.”
·??????We need to “Ensure that every child has the opportunity to fulfill their full potential and is prepared for both work and life in the 21st century.
Sounds almost heroic, no? Who could be against it???
Thorny Questions
But what, exactly, does “potential” mean in this context??How do we, a priori, assess it? Moreover, what does it mean to “fulfill” or “realize” that potential—whatever it is? ?How do we know when it has happened? How do we assess what the "full" potential is??
This is where it gets tough.
These difficult questions are therefore seldom discussed beyond just stating the desire to make it happen. The reason is that humans don’t have a good way, a priori, to measure or assess, individual human potential—and we often get it wrong. So we just speak—or write—these aspirational words because it makes us sound earnest. Then we set some policies in place and hope for the best.
My Answer—and a Definition
My goal here is to propose a more concrete answer to what "reach your full potential” means. Or, if not a full answer, at least a new lens or way to think about it.?
It is this:?
Achievement vs. Accomplishment
In a 2015 article in Educational Technology Magazine (https://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Prensky-Achievement-vs-Accomplishment-FINAL.pdf), I drew a distinction between Achievement and Accomplishment. (Note: The article later became a chapter in my book Education to Better Their World.)
Achievements, I argued, are good—but, by definition, they benefit only the achiever.?Accomplishments are better, because they benefit and improve the world in some way—they help someone, or some others, besides just yourself. Achievements are often rising to the top of a list—which can take hard work and typically results in honors and trophies for you.?Accomplishments, however, are completed projects impacting benefitting the real-world. In fact, for a project to be called an accomplishment it must have had a Measurable Positive Impact (MPI) on the world.?
One’s Potential is “Realized” Through Achievement, not Accomplishment
I suggest that “realizing one's full potential” is done via accomplishments—and not through achievements. High achievement—alone— is not the same as realized potential, because one’s potential is one’s ability to help the world—not just yourself.?Realizing one's full potential, therefore, is creating the maximum accomplishments and Measurable Positive Impact of which one is capable.
Each human’s potential is different—and unknown at the start. Potential isn’t just one’s achievements because much achievement is not unique—many people In many places achieve similar things— e.g., scaling a mountain, earning a doctorate, or even becoming Prime Minister. Yet each person’s accomplishments—i.e., the individual projects they chose to do and get done as they achieved—are all unique. It is the individual projects we choose to take on that fully define us as individual humans, each with our own, unique potential to realize.
While achievements can leave medals, trophies, and diplomas, our accomplishments leave results—ideas or physical creations that last. In many cases our accomplishments are more under our control than are our achievements, because one can accomplish without its being immediately recognized.?Many painters and other artists leave beautiful accomplishments, without ever achieving any recognition at all in their lifetimes.
So, “realized human potential,” for me, is positive impact on others through real-world accomplishments. I prefer that the accomplishments be positive and exclude taking or building something at someone else’s expense.
Hard to Tell in Advance
The problem with trying to assess one’s human potential in advance, is that we do not know what accomplishments someone is capable of, or will do, until they actually accomplish them. ?Unlike in Newtonian physics, where we can calculate potential energy at any point with precision, human potential—what a person will actually accomplish in his or her lifetime—is probably impossible to assess. We really don’t know what a person's potential is until after they have accomplished things. Moreover, because people often surprise us late in life, we can’t measure their true realized potential for sure until they die. And what about what they might have accomplished??Did Mozart or Schubert, for example, both of whom died quite young, realize their full potential??
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How do We Give Kids the Best Chance of Realizing Their Potential?
The answer, therefore, has to be to let them accomplish as much as they can, starting as early as possible. If our desire is truly to help each young human “realize their full potential” (or at least maximize the chances of it happening)—and not just mouth the words—I suggest we are now going about it, as a species, the wrong way.?Since there is no way to tell in advance what that potential is, and no way to know if that potential was “fully realized” before (or even sometimes relatively soon after) death, the only answer is to make the chances of accomplishing something memorable as high as possible.?The key question then becomes:
“What can we give to our young people that will maximize their chances of having as many successful accomplishments as possible?
(That is our definition of “realizing their full potential.”)
My sense is that there are, directionally, two main answers, one that we have been doing, and one that we could do. The second, I believe, is far better for our times and for our young people.
?The Educators' Answer: ?Maximize Content and Character
The traditional answer from educators, is to put as possible of what humans now know into young people’s heads, early in life. Educators believe that if they can insert as much knowledge (i.e., “content”) as possible into the kids’ heads—starting the earlier the better—it will someday lead to “potential maximization.” Some educators attempt to increase the odds of potential maximization by adding “character building”—inserting into the curriculum skills such as the “6 C’s” of citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking, or habits, such as persistence.?Perhaps, in the past, that was the best we could do.?But what is NOT DONE by the educators, typically, is to encourage young people to accomplish in the real-world, starting early in their lives.
My Answer: ?Real-World Accomplishment
If or goal is maximizing potential—i.e., increasing each young person’s chances of having as many successful accomplishments as they possibly can in their life—we should bear in mind something an IBM executive once reminded me of:
“The best predictor of future accomplishment is past accomplishment.”
A far better strategy, therefore, for helping young people realize their potential is for them to accomplish in the real-world now. And by accomplish, I don’t mean what educators typically mean, or ask for. ?“We do projects,” many educators proudly proclaim. But what they almost always mean is “academic projects,” i.e., projects tied tightly to academic standards, that are presented only to the teacher or, at best, a small audience. They often give these projects the high-sounding sobriquet “authentic,” meaning that in some sense they simulate, or are about, the real-world. But sadly, these PBL projects do not increase potential—or if they do, they do so only opening their minds to new ways forward indirectly—because PBL projects are really only an alternative pedagogy—a slightly different way—to teach the old curriculum. The problem, many agree, is that teaching and learning our old curriculum no longer leads to potential maximization—IF, IN FACT, IT EVER DID.?“MPI Projects”, on the other hand, are real-world accomplishments that belong on a résumé and do count as "potential realized." They begin increasing one's potential immediately as they are done.?
?Another Benefit
?An additional benefit of real-world MPI projects for young people is that such projects many actually increase whatever potential they have—by making them more aware of it. When young people accomplish something real, it often leaves them not just with the self-confidence and self-esteem that they did something useful, but also with thoughts about how they could have done it better. This can open their minds to new ways forward—leading to a greater sense of possibility, and potentiality than before.?Educators often see themselves as doing this by “exposing” kids to new areas and topics. But mere exposure is unlikely to lead to potentiality the way accomplishment does.
?Education Can Block Potential
?Although young people—especially today—are extremely capable of doing this type of potential maximizing project—and are often eager to do so—“education” in almost all cases, DOES NOT LET THEM accomplish in the real world (except perhaps, occasionally and minimally in a few places.) The exclusion of real-world accomplishment is not an oversight, but rather a deliberate choice. School is not about accomplishing but about “learning”—i.e., academic learning. Accomplishment is for the post-education future.
From the perspective of “realizing young people’s potential,” this is an unfortunate choice, because only real-world projects—i.e., accomplishments— count towards one's potential being realized. And the more of such projects—accomplishments—that young people do, the better prepared they are to realize their full potential. So doing continuous real-world projects is crucial to our kids’ realizing whatever potential they have.
Realizing Dreams, Fixing Problems, and Helping Others.
No matter what technology brings, humans will never run out of dreams to realize, problems to fix and people who need help. Those, therefore, are the three big overall categories for MPI projects: REALIZING DREAMS, FIXING PROBLEMS, AND HELPING OTHERS. In each of those categories, real-world MPI projects leverage the new “I CAN / WE CAN” attitude of today’s young people along with the new technological capabilities of more and more of them. Thousands of such projects are already being done all over the world, under many sponsors and banners—although they rarely, as yet, happen in our schools,—other than outside of the “true” school day.
Examples
?One of the biggest sponsors of real-world MPI projects, both outside and inside schools, is Design for Change (DFC). That organization started almost two decades ago in India and is now operates in 60 countries. (Note: I am on their Advisory Board.) DFC has helped young people do tens of thousands of real-world impacting projects, with project teams ranging in age from 3 to 20, many of which are well-documented in videos on their website dfcworld.org. Other MPI projects can be viewed at btwdatabase.org.?An important category of MPI projects is projects that students do for real-world clients.?In these projects the team members build an understanding of what it takes to meet a real client’s requirements and demands. When a real-world client actually implements the young peoples’ solution, that is truly “potential realized.”
Bottom Line
It is a worthwhile goal for young people to put in place as much realized potential—i.e., value they have added to the world—as they can for anyone to examine, and for them to point to with pride. ?Going forward, "realizing one's potential"—which has mostly been an obligatory but ill-defined phrase in the mouths of adults—can have the clear, meaningful definition of creating Real-world Accomplishments. The clear, actionable means of realizing one’s full potential is, therefore, continually accomplishing Real-World projects, with Measurable Positive Impact (with the projects chosen by—and not for—the young people based on their unique strengths, interests, and passions.) Continuously realizing potential —not just “stuffing in content” and hoping for the best someday—should be the future of growing up for 21st-century young people. MPI Projects should be the main course of this growing up, and not just a dessert to an academic learning meal. To be included as realized potential projects must be real, and impact the real-world positively.
?Because the best predictor of future accomplishment is past accomplishment—it is helpful to start doing these projects early in life.?Is realizing one’s potential starting in the earliest years even possible? Check out this video to see kids doing it as early as age 3.
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?Marc Prensky is the coiner of the terms “Digital Natives” and Digital Immigrants,” both now in the Oxford English Dictionary. He was formerly at the Boston Consulting Group, and is the author of 10 books, the most recent of which is EMPOWERED!: Re-framing ‘Growing Up’ for a New Age.