The Right Education from Teachers Who Care Can Help Shape a Struggling Student’s Life!
Whose department is it, to educate students in America?
As the year 2025 begins to take on momentum, the next quarter we enter will involve some significant changes in America.
For one thing, many people in this country now have to seriously worry about the future of education, once the current president and Administration decide to dismantle The Department of Education.
My stomach has been unsettled, ever since I heard about how much closer we’re coming to the point of having this turn into a reality.
Naturally, I mentioned the subject in one of my related stories dealing with the theme of learning and what it means to be students.
For a moment, I thought I got over the distaste I have about this issue, once I published the story titled: Are You a True Student of Life? — Our education should never stop just because we’re out of school!
Apparently not.
Somehow, I found myself taking a walk down Memory Lane, and thinking about some of the previous stories I’ve published. Many of them have to do with my earlier years, and how misguided I often was about life.
One story in particular, was one I shared about the time I finally began to recognize the difference between pride and overconfidence.
That was one life lesson that I would have never been helped to understand, if it wasn’t for receiving a proper education and practical advice from a teacher who truly cared.
This educator saw it as part of his job to help educate students about life, even though that wasn’t really his department.
As a teacher, he could have easily stuck to the curriculum and taught from the approved lesson plan; making sure to simply stick to instructing from the book, giving tests, and doling out grades accordingly.
Instead, my former teacher went above and beyond, and by doing so, he helped shape this struggling student’s life in a positive way.
This is what happened to me…
My biggest struggle as a student was about life
I was an exceptional student in my preteen and teen years, and it started with me working and studying my butt off, striving to be the best I could be. But eventually, the pride I began to take in the praise I received, was what ended up causing me to fail.
It wasn’t that I had pride in my achievements that were directly a result of my abilities and hard work. My pride amounted to false pride, in the sense that it stemmed from the perception that others had of me, not how I felt about myself.
There was a time when I didn’t realize this, or understand the difference. As my pride grew to confidence, the gradual progression of my mental state resulted in overconfidence. I stopped studying altogether; thinking I was so smart, I couldn’t do poorly if I wanted to.
And most of the time it was true. I aced through so much work and so many tests, having done little to no studying or homework.
It’s a good thing too, because I bounced around from home to home so much, I was always at a new school, having to start all over somewhere.
The thing that finally caused me to come to my senses, was the summer I spent in summer school, trying to bring my grades back up to par. I’d gotten a report card with three C’s, and one was actually a C-minus which meant it was damn near a D.
For me, that was unthinkable!
I couldn’t understand what on earth was happening. I remember being in shock over the grades, even though my teachers had been warning me for months that I was slipping.
My overconfidence wouldn’t allow me to believe that I could do poorly on my finals at the end of the year, even if my grades took a slight dip. I was horrified at the results, but it helped me learn a solid lesson.
During this same period, my 11th grade psychology teacher had some words of wisdom for me. He realized I was struggling, and he talked to me about not being content to “…rest on my laurels.” In fact, Mr. Dangerfield is the one who helped me appreciate what the expression meant.
You can’t continue to get praise for being on top of your game, if you stop doing the work to keep you on top of your game.
True pride should be rooted in how we ourselves feel about what we accomplish and those accomplishments are directly connected to our actual abilities.
That meant I needed to get back to working hard, if I wanted to improve my grades. But I also needed to stop worrying so much about being on top, if it means constantly vying for undeserved attention.
Final Thoughts
The story I just shared, is probably one that can be recounted again and again by thousands of students who have experienced something similar.
The greatest lesson I learned from that teacher had nothing to do with books or academics. He educated me about life and taught me the kind of practical wisdom I’ve been able to use for years, all across the board.
I’m so glad I came to realize the bottom line is this:
There’s a thin line between pride and overconfidence, and it should never be taken for granted. If it is, you just might look around and find yourself on the wrong side of that line.
- Don’t allow too much pride and overconfidence to cause you to rest on your laurels, to the point of not striving to do better.
- Be determined to challenge yourselves every day, unlike I did when only rested on my laurels.
- Learn to quit worrying about being on top and vying for attention from others. True pride is a feeling that starts and ends with you.
While I could easily say that the teachers were much more caring way back when I was in school, others might disagree and argue that’s not so.
Whether that viewpoint is true or not, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have plenty of caring teachers and educators at every level today, because we do.
My concern is that bureaucracy seems to be making it more and more difficult for educators to carry out their primary duties, let alone go the extra mile.
The latest news about wanting to dismantle The Department of Education is proof of that.
Whose department will it be now, to give a damn about the future of our youth, as well as those who seek a higher education so they can contribute much more to this world?
What are we really saying about how much we value the institution of learning in this country?
Thanks for reading…
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