What about BEING Good in School?

This reflection is about perspective, or perhaps it is a bit about productivity. Regardless, it is definitely about expectation. We as a society, more often than not, send our kids off to school with the following parting phrase “Do Good in School, get good grades”…or at least those were mostly the words I was sent off to school with. But what if we shifted the expectation of good grades and exemplary cognition to something more along the lines of “BE Good in School”? There’s a growing understanding in today’s young society that if kids are respectful and show they are trying, that it is all but guaranteed they’ll “pass” and be moved onto the next grade. This isn’t to argue that grades, comprehension, and understanding aren’t important, they are critical. Today’s classroom is not the source for that however. Today’s classroom largely depends on student’s memorizing facts in order to pass the standardized test, and their teacher’s salary/bonus is largely dictated by the percentage of students that pass. So the intensity of whether or not a student embraces a particular learning and is fostered to extend that passion beyond the classroom and into their college-life, or even their adult life is no longer the general tenet of education. So focusing on our kids BEING good in school, might be more appropriate given the recent events and how the social & emotional health of our students is more of a metric on whether or not they even survive to graduate.

Being raised in the 80’s and early 90’s these things weren’t so prevalent. Sure they existed, we all can think back and probably remember that kid that often got picked on a lot in school, and might even wonder where they are now. But few in my generation can say they have memories of massacre in their reflection on their school years. I’ll never forget being at my nephew’s high school graduation in 2009 and congratulating him by saying “Congratulations Nephew, you made it!”…he quickly replied “I know right, I often wondered whether I’d survive to see Graduation”. I was a bit perplexed, so I asked “what do you mean, you’re a great student”. I was still not grasping the gut-churning reality our kids live with day in and day out, especially that they have to go through “Active Shooter drills” throughout the school year. I mean, can you imagine? As hard as school was to get through in the 80’s/90’s, add to that the ever present danger that your school might be the next mass shooting site, and on any given day? So when he replied “…you know…with all these shootings” I was stopped in my tracks. I remember saying “wow, I never even thought of that as something kids even had to worry about, but you’re right?”

So maybe changing the expectation from “good grades” to “good people”, might go a bit farther..perhaps the kids would encompass good grades and study habits into their idea of “BEING good in school”. So many conversations around the “why” behind these tragedies are often mental health, but they also include poor home environments, and often being bullied in school. This tier-like mentality that many kids often adopt that revolve around perhaps their economic status, or even their GPA, is something we can target as a way to minimize risk. Sure, everyone is responsible for their actions, and not every kid that is bullied in school exacts revenge in extreme ways, but why should that even be a discussion? Why should any parent expect other kids to endure bullying and similar mental torment as an acceptable part of growing up? Maybe they were bullies, or worse, maybe they were bullied and somehow got through it. I would posit then that our resources as kids were often far fewer than these kids today. Recently, I saw on the news where a 16-year-old walked up to two 14-year-olds waiting for the school bus and demanded their cell phones and backpacks, and when they wouldn’t voluntarily give them up he shot them and took them anyway. These are kids, resorting to shooting other kids instead of at least strong arming, or better yet, minding their business and leaving everyone alone. That leaves a 16-year-old who had their entire life ahead of them, now in prison for attempted double murder, and two 14-year-olds left to wonder if they’ll survive their wait for the school bus from now on. That’s absurd!

This stemmed from a conversation I had this morning with someone that said they were always expected to get good grades, and punished if they didn’t, but there was no emphasis ever placed on whether they were good human beings while they were at school. If they ever did step out of line socially they were often scolded not for their actions and the affect on the victim, but for embarrassing the family by acting out and against their etiquette training. That made me wonder, what if we measured our youth on how they treat themselves and one another, rather than how they can outperform one another regardless of their psychosocial affect. Just my thought for the day. Stay safe.