FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION -- IT'S A CHOICE

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION; IT'S A CHOICE.

Our entire school is working with the concept of precepts, or slogans about really important things.  To get the kids thinking, I put up a bunch of precepts on my front board.  The last one I write is the precept:  Failure is not an option; it's a choice.

I give my students every opportunity to pass my class, to learn, to apply themselves.  My students tell me that I am more than fair with their grades, even slightly generous.  Yet I still have several cherubs who are not passing for this final term and even failing for the entire year.   So I announce to my classes, "Failure is not an option, it's a choice.  If you are failing my class it is because you actively choose to do so.  You have to work very hard at failing my class since it's more work to lie about not doing the work than it is to actually do it, especially since most of it is done in class with partners.  You choose to be lazy, you choose to ignore the work, and you choose to fail."

One of my failing cherubs turns and gives me the death stare when I say this, and this sassy little dynamo dares to give me the Fuck you, bitch, you suck more than my mother does look.

Reflexively I exit teacher mode and slam right into mom mode.  "Don't you make that face at me!  That face is not going to change your grades.  It's YOUR choice for you, not my choice for you."  Then I continue on with the lesson about precepts.

Ooops.

But, then again, sometimes these kids need a mom to set them straight, or, at the very least, to be honest with them.  When I vacillate between teacher and mom mode, it's not because I don't love these kids.  I do it precisely because I DO love these kids.

Well ... I like them.  A little bit.  Sometimes.  Occasionally.  On rare occasions.  About as much as they do me... most of the time.
Every so often, like today, students will say to me, "You're my favorite teacher," to which I answer, "What's WRONG with you?!"  I don't want to be their favorite teacher; I want to be the teacher who makes their brains hurt.

You see, this precept thing works both ways.  Failure for me is not an option, either.  To be a sucky teacher, I'd have to make that choice, a choice I truly hope I do not make even by accident. 

When it comes to education, even when it comes to life:  Failure is not an option; it's a choice.  I can steer them, I can turn them, I can even kick them proverbially in their behinds, but I cannot go home with them, live in their skins, occupy their brains.  I can be an example.

I'll let you know if the kiddos bring me any really good precepts.  After all, I'm never done learning; it's all about choosing to keep an open mind.