I transferred schools my sophomore year and, when I received my first report card at the new Catholic high school after a semester of decently hard work, I was shocked: straight Bs. I had no idea that bad students could get such good grades.
Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting.” In the conquests of life that’s right, but as a student, the inverse holds true: staying on top is better than rising to the top. Remaining an A student is infinitely easier than becoming an A student – a lesson that I would figure out during the remainder of my high school and college years.
As a kid, I routinely tested in the top percentiles. While I was busy failing out of my freshman year of high school, I was acing Algebra tests, despite truancy and an inability to find and turn in any homework. Many of my guys are similar. For the most part, they’re amazing thinkers. One draws schematics of machines he’s invented when he should be taking notes. Another knows more about European military history than me – and I majored in history. But middle and high schools don’t award excellent grades for excellent thinking – they award them for organization and consistency. And that’s where my guys fall down.
I know the dread of not having your homework, or not knowing if you have your homework, or not even knowing if there was homework. It sucks. Much of my job is helping guys realize that all it takes to be a good student is breaking the habits of poor organization. If you’ve never been a bad student, it’s probably hard to understand how daunting of a hurdle this can be.
We’re all adept at assigning labels to people, including ourselves, but middle school boys are especially gifted. “I’m not good at math”, “I’m not a good writer”, and “I’m a ‘C’ student” are common labels that kids stick on themselves, and those labels have lasting power. Worse than not having his homework is his lack of surprise that he doesn’t have his homework; resignation is more toxic than mediocrity. My job – our job – is to remove those labels, to peel them off and discard, and replace them with ones that are positively self-reinforcing.
A couple of years ago I tutored Zack on SSAT prep. He’d been dredging the bottom percentiles in quantitative reasoning (math), but after talking to him for a few minutes it was clear that a kid this smart should be banging his head on the ceiling of these scores. We spent all summer before 8th grade, twice a week, on SSAT prep, with a special emphasis on math. It became easier. Then fun. Then so easy it was no longer fun. His percentile score on the SSAT was in the high 90s, and for the first time he saw how amazing he was at math and, more importantly, at learning. After a successful 8th grade year, Zack vaulted into high school with high self-expectations, and he hasn’t disappointed.
Long before Zora, Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” While I’d rather hang with Zora, I’d take Aristotle as a study partner. Consistent routines that help with school organization are key for misorganized guys. As habits (and grades) improve, conversations around how it feels to be a good student, an organized student, an ‘A’ student will help reinforce this new self-concept. Helping a mislabeled kid relabel himself is neither easy nor quick; it requires consistency and positivity. In my work, the most fulfilling moment is when one of my mislabeled guys finally realizes how academically capable he is and starts getting the results he’s always thought were out of his reach. Zora was right, after all.
The Misorganized Mind 