This post is for readers everywhere:
Let them fail, the wisdom goes. Let them fall down and learn to pick themselves up. Teach them to create positive feedback loops for themselves. Teach them to say, “I will do better next time.” They will develop self-confidence as they keep going and learn they can work to succeed. Let them try, try, try again until they find the path out of the maze.
“Fall down seven times, stand up eight,” the classroom posters say. I like those posters. I believe in standing up. I stood as long as I could, until I finally turned in my retirement papers because I got tired of doing batshit crazy things on the whim of administrators, a couple of whom appeared to be intravenously hooked up to the Kool-Aid. Another required Common Core-based exam for a student testing four or more years below the level of the exam:
Eduhonesty: No. No. No. No. No. Here’s the thing: Some kids will not get up. Some kids will not get out of the maze. If you want to know how a kid can go to school for twelve years and emerge unable to fill out a job application or calculate simple loan interest, I’ll answer that. We gave that kid endless pep talks. We kept telling that kid to try harder. But the corn stalks were too high. The walk was too long. Or maybe gravity just tired that kid out. Whatever the reason, one day that kid went down and never got up again. Maybe he crawled in spurts.
We are willing to acknowledge people can suffer from different degrees of depression. We accept that autism, anxiety and numerous other characteristics fall on a spectrum. Anxiety can be a gnat or a 700 pound gorilla.
Resilience falls on a spectrum, too. Some kids keep standing up, those who believe their positive feedback loops or those who are simply too stubborn to stay down. But we should treat America’s children more gently. Some kids will curl up in the cornfield. They will start playing endless Mortal Combat or Mobile Strike when they get home, and exit education, even if their bodies still occupy desks. After all, somewhere out in the wild world of cyberspace, our students can find a game they can win.
Why always fall down and feel bad, when the right videogame makes you feel like a winner instead?
P.S. As kids get older, other escapes become easy to find. It takes no time to load a bong in the morning. Red eyes and placid expressions greet many middle-school and high-school teachers during their first periods.