The Best of the Worst

On this Chalk Talk Thursday, consider this. Where are you in life? Are you the best of the worst, or the worst of the best?

We had a parent conference this morning for one middle school student who is not doing his best.  He is barely passing his classes, does hardly any class work, is distracted by his peers, and goes home pretty much every night and tells his mom he has no homework. Every night.

Now you know if you have a kid in school who has "no homework," every night, something's gotta be wrong. Right? Right!

Anyway this mom was at the end of her rope, and wanted us team of teachers to fix the problem.  She complained she went to work at 9:30 a.m. and didn't get home til 8:30 at night, and she's too tired and doesn't want to fight with her son about homework when he doesn't even want to show her his notebooks and get this...he shuts her out of his room!  Really??? Who's the parent? Who makes the rules in that house? Seriously?

Well turns out mom needed a little schooling herself! I told her that there were teachers around this same table looking at her who get here at 7 a.m. and don't leave til 7 at night, and we're tired too! Each teacher sees her child for one hour everyday, we do the best we can with that one hour, and we need her to do her job as a parent and support what we do in the classroom...at home! I mean seriously!? When did it become a teacher's job to make sure students do their homework? Uhmmm...isn't that what parents are supposed to do?

Think she got the lesson straight? I sure hope so!

Now this same student mentioned to us that he did want to go to college and study to be a researcher. We tried to show him that he needed to put forth a lot more effort and pass all his classes if he wants to accomplish his goal. And since he was complacent with just a "passing" grade, one of the teachers on my team tried to drive home the point a little bit clearer by telling him about "the best of the worst, and the worst of the best."

What a great analogy!

And that's real talk on educating students and their parents!

So where are you in life? Are you the best of the worst, or the worst of the best?

I don't know about you, but I'm never okay with mediocrity and just being average!