Review_Author: Maureen Manning
Book_Author: H. Varenne & R. McDermott
Book_Title: Successful Failure: The school America builds
Reference: 1998; Boulder, CO; Westview
Date: 4/2/00
Time: 3:47:31 PM
Remote Name: 128.175.145.41
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In Successful failure: The school America builds, Varenne and McDermott (1998) present a problem that plagues numerous professionals in the field of education, that is, “Why can’t Johnny read?” Unlike others, Varenne and McDermott do not attempt to answer the question by looking “inside” Johnny for some sort of neurological or psychological deficit. Rather, they never answer the question at all. Instead of looking for an answer to the question, they look at the question itself and at those who are asking it.
In looking at the question “Why can’t Johnny read?” Varenne and McDermott point out that it is phrased negatively, with an emphasis on explaining why Johnny can’t read instead of explaining why Sheila can. Rather than attempting to uncover the reasons for school failure or school success, however, the authors challenge these very concepts. They describe children who are traditionally viewed as failures and point out areas in which they succeed; likewise, they describe children who are traditionally viewed as successes and emphasize that they are rarely more than one step ahead of failure. Overall, Varenne and McDermott’s point is that both success and failure are arbitrary constructs, the creation of a culture that thrives upon competition, a culture that determines the merit of individuals on the basis of how well they perform in comparison to everyone else. They characterize American schooling, and society, as a race in which only one person can win. The desire to be the first at the finish line fosters an attitude of self-servingness among students that leaves them playing games of “Screw Thy Neighbor” with each other. Just as students cannot count on each other to help them out just when they need them the most, they cannot count on their parents or teachers either. Acting much like coaches do, parents and teachers can prep students for the big race but they must withdraw at the critical moment when the race is run. As a result, students must run alone as adults stand on the sidelines and make judgments about their performance.
Looking further at the spectators who stand on the sidelines and ask the question, “Why can’t Johnny read?”, Varenne and McDermott turn their gaze toward the individuals who decided that Johnny can’t read but Sheila can, and toward the society that has decided that this difference between Johnny and Sheila is important. They point out that the existence of a difference, in and of itself, is inconsequential. It is only when society attaches meaning to it that the difference becomes consequential and the child becomes either enabled or disabled by those around him. To illustrate their point, Varenne and McDermott describe a community of deaf individuals in Martha’s Vineyard that thrived for two centuries prior to this one. This was a community in which deaf individuals were by no means limited by their inability to hear. Rather, they played a vital role in the community, often attending school for longer than those with hearing did and thus frequently approached for help because of their advanced reading and writing skills. Not only were those without hearing fully integrated into the community of those with hearing, but the opposite was also true: that is, those with hearing were fully integrated into the community of those without hearing. For example, everyone on Martha’s Vineyard spoke sign language. Those with hearing used this not only as a means by which to communicate with those without hearing, but sometimes even as a means to communicate with each other as well. Overall, Varenne and McDermott emphasize that a difference alone does not limit individuals or constitute a disability; rather, it is society that limits them. Like success and failure, Varenne and McDermott point out that disability too is a cultural construction. They drive this point home through descriptions not only of communities such as Martha’s Vineyard but also of children such as Adam. According to society, Adam “had” a learning disability, but according to Varenne and McDermott, it was society that “had” the disability and the disability that “had” Adam.
Overall, the strength of this book is in the many vignettes and metaphors, only a few of which are named here, that powerfully challenge the traditional conceptions of failure and disability. I highly recommend this book to anyone who plans to work in the field of education but especially to my colleagues in the school psychology program, who are daily faced with the challenge of explaining failure and identifying disabilities, constructs that may perhaps exist more in our schools and in our society than in the children who inhabit them.
Varenne, H., & McDermott, R. (1998). Successful failure: The school America builds. Boulder, CO: Westview.