These Things May Not be What you Expect
Amy E. Barr
Everyone who teaches classes for The Lukeion Project has also taught (or is even currently teaching) at the college level. When we say our classes are college-prep, we don’t just mean they are a tad demanding and look good on a transcript. From the first day of our first semester-class, we have been preparing people to flourish in challenging academic environments. This includes everything from managing time well, to learning how to successfully self-advocate by communicating with instructors, to writing a properly analytical research paper.
Through the years, Lukeion faculty periodically gather at the water cooler and have collectively grumbled and harrumphed about the following skills that are absolutely 200% necessary for best success in college:
1. Successful students know how to fail well.
This is not to be confused with "fail a lot."
Ask any modern collegiate professional and they’ll likely put this issue high on their list as well: Academic stakes have become so high and so expensive that many students and their parents feel they can't recover from even a minor academic failure!
Each semester a few of our students predictably withdraw immediately after earning their first low quiz score. Sometimes this happens at the very start of the semester. Worse, it even happens when most of the semester has already passed...sometimes after two semesters have passed. "Failure just isn't an option," they opine. But failure is always an option! Failure is also normal. Your student needs practice experiencing failure and productively recovering from it.
Giving up after a bad week or two was so rare a decade ago we used to be able to remember specific details. For example, I once had a student who quit Latin after the third semester because she scored a 96% instead of 97% on a weekly quiz. It was the first time she didn't earn an A+! Her mom withdraw her from the class, fully supportive of ending her daughter's Latin studies due to this "failure." Certainly, such extremes are rare but becoming less so each year. Such students will meander through 7 years of middle and high school without suffering, surviving, and growing from a single failure. They will have developed almost no life survival skills. Even the smallest failure will eventually bring a catastrophe of epic proportions.
Each semester a few of our students predictably withdraw immediately after earning their first low quiz score. Sometimes this happens at the very start of the semester. Worse, it even happens when most of the semester has already passed...sometimes after two semesters have passed. "Failure just isn't an option," they opine. But failure is always an option! Failure is also normal. Your student needs practice experiencing failure and productively recovering from it.
Giving up after a bad week or two was so rare a decade ago we used to be able to remember specific details. For example, I once had a student who quit Latin after the third semester because she scored a 96% instead of 97% on a weekly quiz. It was the first time she didn't earn an A+! Her mom withdraw her from the class, fully supportive of ending her daughter's Latin studies due to this "failure." Certainly, such extremes are rare but becoming less so each year. Such students will meander through 7 years of middle and high school without suffering, surviving, and growing from a single failure. They will have developed almost no life survival skills. Even the smallest failure will eventually bring a catastrophe of epic proportions.
The qualities needed to endure a setback and return stronger are summed up as “grit.” Students must know how to have a bad week or two and still land on their feet. Second chances, no firm deadlines, and daily do-overs may seem like a great way to keep your kid happy but, be careful! Persistently protecting a child from failure will do the worst type of damage. Shielding kids from failure will never develop confidence, self-esteem, or resilience but rob them of those things most cruelly.
2. Successful students have lots of practice in academic writing.
In elementary school, even the most hesitant writer can be induced to produce when assigned creative writing projects. Limericks are tons more fun than book reports so creative projects rule the day.
Too often students are never transitioned to academic writing until very late in their high school years, if ever. Aside from a rare few classes in college, students will never again be asked to produce creative writing projects. Lab reports, academic essays, research projects, literary analyses, and peer critiques are on their college schedule. Students won’t be taught how to write these things in college. If they don't know what they are doing, they will be assigned to a remedial course (code for “expensive class that doesn’t count toward graduation”) or they will require long hours with a tutor at the writing lab. All of our literature courses, history, and Latin 3 and beyond (including Transition), have academic writing requirements to help grow these necessary skills.
3. Successful students have good time management.
Help students move toward independence by quitting your job as manager early in the teen years. There are plenty of job openings available in mentoring. Mentor was a character developed by Homer in his epic, the Iliad. Athena, disguised as Mentor, helps teenaged Telemachus safely cross the bridge to adulthood with timely words of advice. The modern idea is no different. A mentor does not manage the phone, calendar, and computer while handling every detail of a child’s life. Instead, she offers timely guidance while the young person does the hard work of navigating life himself.
Parents must let adolescents do the legwork and heavy lifting now while there’s a safety net in place. Let your teen make his own arrangements with employers, pack leaders, teachers, and tutors. Let him coordinate his own details to find rides, attend a class, or practice a sport. When illness strikes, let her ask for make-up extensions on her own--even when she has the sniffles and doesn't feel like writing that email.
The biggest obstacle to practicing this skill is the well-meaning parent. If you are an excuse-maker (“he didn’t finish because he was tired”), a second-chance giver (“please let her take the missed quiz”), or an extension-granter (“he is pretty busy, so you should give him extra time”) you’ll likely have a student who struggles with time-management issues. Your teenager will expect extensions and second chances from everyone if he has always gotten them from you.
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