Happy Sunday Everyone:
Virtual school for our kids sucks. I’m sure I could sit here and find the goodness in some part of it but overall, it’s for the birds. Jack’s a junior, Thomas a freshman. I’ve mentioned Thomas before and some learning challenges he has. This has no bearing/impact on my belief he will run the world someday but school doesn’t come natural and sitting in a room for 7 hours w/ ADHD and no real access to the extra help (in person) is a challenging formula. Virtual classrooms, virtual assignments, and a variety of outlets to find these assignments in various websites doesn’t add to the fun of it, including for the parents.
In late October we found out that Thomas had a multitude of missing assignments for English, and would yield him a failing grade. His 1st year English Teacher took a hard stance on her policy of allowing 1 late assignment to be turned in per semester. The resource teacher, Thomas, and Kim, all pleaded with her, given the conditions right now to give Thomas an opportunity to make up the assignments. I’ll skip the excuses but will leave it with Thomas wasn’t intentionally not doing his work. She was firm on her commitment and simply said “sorry, that’s my policy”. We talked to Thomas about it and decided Thomas was going to complete the assignments regardless of getting credit for them. Three weeks ago she sent Thomas an email saying “I’m not sure why you’re doing all these I’m not giving you credit for them”. When I found out about this, I was “slightly” frustrated, in part because it’s my own kid, and in part because of the lack of appreciation (from my perspective) on the overall life lesson here. Thomas responded with “I just want you and my parents to know I’m trying”. Last week she responded to Thomas that she would consider giving him partial credit for the assignments he had made up, coming off her original stance.
Fast forward to a long walk I was on Thursday Morning. Listening to a great podcast of Ed Mylett interviewing Jon Gordon. Jon Gordon is a leadership coach & author. He works with a ton of college and professional teams including Clemson Football (#2 in the country for those of you who don’t follow). The head coach, Dabo Swinney, was telling Jon about his favorite story of the carrot, the egg, and the coffee bean. I’ll make this as short as possible but taking all 3 into boiling hot water, the hot water serving as adversity, the carrot, once strong becomes soft and loses its strength, the egg, once being malleable on the inside becomes hardened and stiff, and then the coffee bean, which actually changes the boiling water for the better, it’s changing the environment it’s in when adversity strikes. So with all that is going on in the world right now, we have to ask ourselves, are we acting as the carrot, the egg, or the coffee bean?
While listening to the podcast I instantly put the Thomas situation together with the carrot/egg/coffee bean story. I’m fully aware this stuff is 10X more intense when it’s your story, and even more so when it’s your kid but here are my take aways:
1. When someone gives you permission to quit, to give up, the hairs on your neck better stand tall. They either don’t get the point, or they’re not good for your life, either way, we need to be on alert.
2. Unfortunately I think the only way to truly appreciate not being behind the eight ball is to have been behind the eight ball. So when you find yourself behind the eight ball, it’s actually a blessing assuming you learn from it i.e. how did I get here, and how do I make sure I don’t find myself here again.
3. Follow through and completion needs to be imbedded in our hearts/minds. It’s not about the other person, it’s about what you’re doing for your own self and soul when you complete the assignment, whatever that assignment may be.
4. Be the coffee bean. I sat Thomas down and tried to explain all of this to him, what had transpired. He changed the environment. He forced his teacher to think differently because he didn’t listen to her and quit. Her decision would have been so much easier had he listened to her. Victim mindset vs. Creator mindset. Victim quits because someone says to quit, creator mindset sticks to it and lets the chips fall where they. Might be the same outcome but how you got there is categorically different.
5. So many of us, including teachers, have more power to impact than we realize. I hope for myself, and for so many of you, that we appreciate this responsibility and do something positive with it.
Side note-My mom taught special education for 30 years. I love teachers. I’m not a fan of how this teacher handled this situation at all (although I’m glad she chose not to be the egg) but in the end Thomas and his parents have to take full responsibility as well for being in this position in the first place….but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish, and what you learn from it along the way.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!!