I’m Really Going To Do It This Time.
I gave Dylan a simple assignment: ZERO zeros.
A zero reflects missing work. Sometimes it’s classwork that he didn’t finish in class. Sometimes he finished it but shoved it into his binder instead of turning it in. Sometimes it’s homework. Sometimes – whatever it is – it’s somehow gotten squashed into the bottom of his locker or sandwiched between his lunchbox and the form I asked him to return last week.
“NO zeros,” I told him. “You only need to make it until spring break. But you need to turn in every, single assignment, every day. If you turn in everything by spring break – and I mean everything – I will let you have an extra half-hour of electronics time on non-school days.”
“Okay,” Dylan said. “I’m really going to do it.”
“Do you know how to do it?” I asked him – since he’s never successfully turned in his work in every class, ever.
“Sure,” he said. “And I’m really going to do it this time.”
“What is your plan?”
“I’ll just really try,” he said – oblivious to the fact that he’s said those same words 6,598,722 times since he started middle school. Now he’s starting high school, and his habits are exactly the same: come home, text friends, do nothing related to school, go back to school with nothing done. It’s been a pretty consistent pattern.
“No,” I said. “You will not ‘really try.’ You have to do something different. Hey! I know! Why don’t you try TALKING TO YOUR TEACHERS AFTER CLASS TO SEE WHAT YOU NEED TO TURN IN?!?”
“I don’t know why I don’t do that,” he said. “I always think that I’m going to, and then somehow I just don’t.”
It has been three years.
For three years, I have said: “There is only one thing you need to do. You need to talk to your teacher after class. Say, ‘what did I need to turn in today?’ And then, when your teacher tells you what it is, you get it out of your backpack and give it to your teacher. Then you say, ‘what do I need to turn in tomorrow?’ – and write that down.”
He did it for one week. This past October, he did it for one week. Because I paid him a quarter for every teacher he talked to, every day. He made a few dollars, then he quit doing it.
So here we are again. The third trimester is starting, and Dylan’s behavior is – if anything – even worse than it was before. He comes home, texts friends, does nothing related to school, then goes back to school with nothing done. And he certainly isn’t turning in his work.
Oh, and yesterday I looked online and found that he had four missing assignments in Physics, one missing assignment in Algebra (along with a failed quiz and a failed test). These are the two classes that matter, since they are high school level classes and will go on his transcript for college. Oddly, these are also the ones in which he is missing work.
So he will not be getting extra electronics time at spring break. And even though it is a full week away, I am wondering how he will ever meet his goal of improving drastically before the end of the trimester, since I don’t know how he will survive high school if he doesn’t practice better study/homework/classroom habits right now if he’s planning to pass 9th grade.
There’s a chance I’m getting ahead of myself, worrying for nothing.
And there’s a chance that it will just never, ever change.