The big door prize: conceptualising potential in education as an arrow

If you were told your life’s potential, would it change how you live? This is one of the questions posed in Apple TV’s series The Big Door Prize (2023). The residents of a small town become fascinated by the MORPHO machine that appears mysteriously one night and dispenses small blue cards with the promise of revealing the life potential of the holder. Consequently, the townsfolk embark on a collective odyssey to understand what is meant by life potential. Potential in education is a confusing idea. On one hand, the rhetorical ubiquity of fulfilling one’s potential suggests it is a finite void within an individual into which all educational efforts should be funnelled. At the opposite end of the continuum, most teachers would likely balk at any mention of a student with no potential—almost as unicorn-like as those whose potential has been entirely fulfilled. In this paper, I will embrace this confusion and follow how the characters’ notions of potential change in The Big Door Prize, using Israel Scheffler’s comprehensive conceptualisation ‘Of Human Potential’ to discuss the characters’ journey and determine whether there is another way to think about potential and education.