Let’s Wait for the Tutor.
After one day back at school, we had a snow day. Dylan came home with a huge packet for algebra, to help him review for a looming exam. I mentioned it several times, but his attitude was that he should wait for his tutor before he even started it.
It’s due the day AFTER his tutor arrives, and it’s several pages. Thus started the discourse – including a bonus reward if he can bring up his grade to a B by the end of the year – trying to teach Dylan that it’s a good idea to actually WORK on something, to PRACTICE, to make something happen.
“I don’t know if I can even do it,” he wailed. “I’ve got a negative failing grade right now and I don’t even know if I can bring it up!”
“Dylan,” I said, “like everything else, you have to do it one step at a time. You can’t move a mountain if you stand and stare at the mountain. You move one rock.”
He stared at me.
“Well I just wish we could have the tutor here twice a week,” he said.
I picked up the phone. “We can have the tutor here twice a week!” I said.
“Don’t call him NOW!” Dylan responded. Obviously, he had additional wishes.
“You have to work at this, Dylan,” I said. “You have to actually work to make it happen. If you want to change your grade, you’re going to have to do real work. I’m talking about one to two hours of algebra every night.”
“I don’t have enough algebra to work on for an hour every night!”
I sighed. “I bought you two algebra books, and you haven’t opened either one of them. They’ve been sitting here for four months. They are for practice. One of them supposedly explains algebra for people who think like you do. But you wouldn’t know because you haven’t even opened the book.”
I pointed to his desk, where one of the algebra books was suffocating under a pile of papers from last quarter. Nothing had been touched on that desk for months.
Dylan changed his tactic. “Well I need my calculator for some of these problems and I can’t find my charger!”
“I didn’t lose your charger,” I said. “That calculator cost $140, so you can owe me that if you can’t charge it.”
“But I didn’t lose it!” he wailed again.
We went back and forth for awhile before I finally walked away.
Hours went by. Dylan played video games and texted his friends. Finally, there was a silence – and I went in to give him almond milk – a drink that is supposed to help him focus.
I found him playing video games again.
“I thought you were doing algebra,” I said. “I brought you this drink to help you focus.”
“I wanted to go outside,” he said. “Plus I don’t even know how I could do a whole hour of algebra right now.”
I called his dad at work, before I exploded. “You HAVE to talk to him,” I said, “or I’m going to kill him.”
He talked to him. Dylan sat down and worked on algebra for 45 minutes.
Then he went outside and played, which is all he wants to do. And in all of my great wisdom, what I want most is for him to be happy. I can’t fight the excuses when I know he’s barely 13 and already worried sick about getting into MIT.
He should be playing in the snow.