Wish I were working on this garage instead of writing about it.
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
School and Grades: Making the Conversation Real
We have a dear friend visiting. She professes frustration with her 17 year old son's choices about school performance. Bright, inquisitive, personable, Nathan almost failed all his classes this past year. I worry that much of her identity is tied up in Nathan's academic success even though I know it's not: she's worried about his future.
What does the conversation with a teeange student who's chosen not to perform look like? How can anything be said that would meaningfully change the status quo.
Making an answer to this question more difficult is the developing reality: I think that teenagers today occasionally and unfortunately understand the irrelevance of normal life as we have defined it. My son knows about the hypocrisy of leading a modern life where we talk about "green," but we still participate in an economy fueled by petrodollars. At the age of 19, where can he go with this wisdom?
Harold Kushner, Rabbi and bestselling writer offers us a piece of wisdom: “If logic tells you that life has no meaning, give up on logic, don’t give up on life.” Is this part of the argument we need to make to these wiser children? So that they can fit their decisions into the larger framework of life?
I think teenagers are aware that grades and performance in school has some vague connection to one’s perceived “success” as an adult. To take this idea to its illogical extreme, though, often creates meglamaniacal behavior which requires shutting down some ethical switches in the brain; it is, of course, a generalization but many people with this kind of approach or thought process were the ones packaging subprime loans and mortgage derivatives for sale to investors and didn't ask any questions. Rugged indivualist kind of thinking.
The delicate balance we all strive for as parents is to help foster a sense of discovery in our children coupled with responsibility and compassion. Before answering "How?" we should accomplish this task, we need to spend more time with the "Why?"
What does the conversation with a teeange student who's chosen not to perform look like? How can anything be said that would meaningfully change the status quo.
Making an answer to this question more difficult is the developing reality: I think that teenagers today occasionally and unfortunately understand the irrelevance of normal life as we have defined it. My son knows about the hypocrisy of leading a modern life where we talk about "green," but we still participate in an economy fueled by petrodollars. At the age of 19, where can he go with this wisdom?
Harold Kushner, Rabbi and bestselling writer offers us a piece of wisdom: “If logic tells you that life has no meaning, give up on logic, don’t give up on life.” Is this part of the argument we need to make to these wiser children? So that they can fit their decisions into the larger framework of life?
I think teenagers are aware that grades and performance in school has some vague connection to one’s perceived “success” as an adult. To take this idea to its illogical extreme, though, often creates meglamaniacal behavior which requires shutting down some ethical switches in the brain; it is, of course, a generalization but many people with this kind of approach or thought process were the ones packaging subprime loans and mortgage derivatives for sale to investors and didn't ask any questions. Rugged indivualist kind of thinking.
The delicate balance we all strive for as parents is to help foster a sense of discovery in our children coupled with responsibility and compassion. Before answering "How?" we should accomplish this task, we need to spend more time with the "Why?"
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