Revealed: the big lie that could be wrecking your child's future

Teachers, parents and politicians who tell children that they “can be anything!” are lying, according to research in the South African Journal of Education.

Those who use the phrase genuinely want the best for young people in poor areas, said sociologist Katherine Morse.

“They aim to encourage. However, what they offer is hope without substance.”

Children who embraced the lie “make plans for unattainable goals while neglecting to explore realistic possibilities”, said Morse, saying it was one of the reasons half of young people of school-leaving age are not in employment, education or training.

It’s a sobering message, with less than three weeks until matric results are released on January 7 by basic education minister Angie Motshekga, and at schools the following day.

Morse asked 813 pupils in grade 11 at average-performing schools in Cape Town to answer 100 multiple-choice questions about their plans for after-school study or work, study habits and confidence in their academic ability

On average, their mid-grade marks were 51%, but they expected a matric mark of 69%, and pupils at schools with the lowest historical academic performance had the highest expectations of improvement.

“Some learners expected astonishing increases of over 50%,” said Morse, pointing out that in another study at two Cape Town schools, actual marks between mid-grade 11 and matric changed by between -3 and +22 percentage points.

“All learners who expect a mark change of more than 22% are in the realm of wild imagination,” she said.

However, the pupils she interviewed in the second phase of her research, “unanimously advocated for believing in yourself, dreaming big”.

Morse added: “They believe these high expectations will bolster their academic performance but while there is a plethora of popular materials on self-belief, research shows that it contributes very little to overall academic achievement.”

She said many of the children in her study “photoshopped” their own marks “so their recall represents what they believe they could have or can still achieve rather than what they did achieve”.

Their justifications for doing this “include that the results are incorrect, that the weightings for the various component tasks were unfair, or that the teacher was to blame. The remembered marks ... have been filtered through stories [or lies] that excuse the learners from having to do anything to change their academic efforts.”

Morse said some of the children in her study, which was conducted among coloured and black pupils at low-fee or no-fee schools, “lived in such difficult circumstances that photoshopping the reality of their life was the only way to have a robust and healthy psyche”.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds “were more focused on the status of having a professional career than on how they would achieve that goal”, she said.

“Learners most at risk from the lie that you can be anything are those who do not engage with actual hard work, goal-setting and strategising. They are convinced that their self-belief alone can make a dream reality. They adjust their truth to avoid taking responsibility for poor performance.”

Morse said 70% of the grade 11s in her sample predicted their marks would increase in the next 15 months “to an unlikely or impossible degree”.

About 87% intended to study further after high school, yet three-quarters of them did not have the minimum marks needed for entry into the tertiary course they were interested in.

Morse made two recommendations:

Promote self-regulated learning: “Learners ... who were most able to accurately report their marks were also the highest-performing learners. They were aware of and continually referred to their recent marks. They set realistic goals based on current performance, developed strategies and reviewed progress.”

Stop telling young people they can be anything: “This lie is attractive in the face of desperate poverty. Stories of the one who succeeded against the odds are cited as evidence. Changing this community narrative is possibly the biggest challenge ahead of us.”