Unfortunately, many students fail classes at the very last minute. And, unfortunately, parents often don’t find out until a week or so after summer break begins, when grades go out.
Parents are often completely unaware of upcoming (and heavily weighted) Papers, Exams and Projects. Heck, many students are completely unaware (or avoiding the stress of remembering). You need clarity. Period.
What can you do?
Check grades daily from now until the end of school. Be on the look out for things like missings, incompletes, patterns contributing to low grades, etc..
Email teachers to get 100% clarity regarding 1. what needs to be done to make sure your child passes as well as 2. asking if there are any PEPs coming up.
Thoroughly explore teacher websites to see if they have listed any PEPs. Often you will find them in a teacher’s online calendar, hidden in the bowels of a syllabus pdf, or front and center on their web page. Look out for timelines, rubrics, or other directions.
If there is a paper to be written, find out where the directions are and get them. Do not depend on your child for this clarity, find out with certainty from the teacher.
If there are exams, find out if there is a study guide and get it. Do not depend on your child for this clarity, find out with certainty from the teacher.
If there is a project, find out where the requirements are and get them. Do not depend on your child for this clarity, find out with certainty from the teacher.
Do not wait until the last minute to help your child write, study for exams or work on a project. Be proactive and plan way more time that you think you’ll need.
Here’s to a fantastic summer, completely free of unfinished business,
Seth
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But once they feel “threatened”, it’s not getting through. It’s so easy for us, as adults, to see what “needs to be done”. We can see so clearly that if they just do x, y and z, that they would make things so much easier on themselves. We just don’t understand why they don’t take these simple actions and it’s infuriating.
So what works?
Believe it or not, one of the BIGGEST keys to helping kids change is empowering growth in millimeters. It’s the small baby steps that work. Many tiny steps add together to create big change, and it requires a ton of time, effort and patience. A TON. Way more than you think it should!
There are two things my father likes to say that are apropos.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” and…
“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
Now go help your child move a millimeter, because it’s all that matters.
Here’s some gratitude for all the mom’s out there. I want to send a sincere thanks to you for being an awesome mom, for everything you do behind the scenes, for your time, effort, energy, and love. Here are some of my favorite mom quotes…
“They are not kidding when they say that mothers are strong women. We need to be strong in more ways than our children will ever know.” — M.B. Antevasin
“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” — Abraham Lincoln
“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
―Washington Irving
“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe
“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” — Sophia Loren
“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.” ― Marguerite Duras
“But there’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begin.” — Mitch Albom
This semester is going to end in the blink of an eye, and the stakes are high. Many kids who struggle with executivefunction are at risk of failing classes, which sets in motion a string of consequences. So what can you do? Do this sometime today:
Do not lecture, argue, yell, or use logic to convince your child to “get it together” when they are in a defensive or otherwise emotional state. It will fall upon deaf ears and cause more frustration and shame.
Have a heart to heart “strategy session” with them. Be very calm, detached and emotionally regulated yourself before you have this talk. However…
Give them fair warning ahead of time, so they can prepare mentally and emotionally. Parents rarely do this because they start a discussion when they are concerned and emotional, but it’s incredibly helpful to give this warning. Here’s an example, “Hey, to be honest, I’m concerned about your grades, so at 4:00 today I’m going to sit down with you for about 30 min to talk about school. Don’t worry, you’re not in “trouble”, but we are going to have an honest, solution focused talk, ok? And after we’re done, we won’t talk about school any more today. Promise.” And don’t bring it up after you finish! This talk is going cover a lot.
When it’s time to sit down and chat, begin with 3 sincere compliments, “Look, before we dive in, I want you to know that I’m really proud of you. I appreciate how you watch out for your brother, and think that’s pretty cool. I like how hard you’ve worked to get better at science, and how you’ve gone to office hours for help. That’s a mature thing to do. I also appreciate that you’ve been helping out more around the house.” Remember, these must be sincere, genuine, authentic things you appreciate.
Next, “Alright, let’s start with the grades. Let’s log in and see what’s going on.” NO SHAME, just go through the grades and print or list the items to be addressed. I usually help them list missing work, zeros, low grades that pull everything down, or discuss patterns (such as missing several of reading logs, etc.)
Now say, “great, let’s email these teachers to see what can be done. Do you want the emails to come from me or you?”
Email all relevant teachers and say, “Hey, trying to see what can be done to end the semester right. Please send me a quick note letting me know what needs to happen– come to office hours, makeup work, sitting somewhere else in the class, be working on a project proactively, etc.? Thanks for your time.” Make sure to cc with your child.
“Great, now let’s do a backpack dump.” Go through every single thing. If it’s trash, get rid of it. If it has to be turned in, put it in a pile – I often recommend that, at this point in the year, parents just drop late work off to the office to make sure they get turned in. Just staple them in piles for the corresponding teachers and put a sticky note on the pile with the teacher’s name. Ask the office to throw it in the teacher’s mailbox and be done with it. Now make a pile for things that need to be completed. Finally, put all remaining papers into the appropriate folders.
“Great, now let’s make a plan. What homework can you get done today?” Make a written plan with your child. DO NOT expect them to be realistic about this… they have not developed that skill yet, so accept it and move forward! Have your child do as much as she can, and tomorrow you can help her update the plan.
Rinse and repeat this process as often as necessary until the end of the year.
Note, do not expect everything to be done perfectly or completely. Do not shoot for straight As. You may be a detail oriented person, but if you’re reading this, your child is not. So know when to pick your battles, when enough is enough, when to let it go. And compliment ALL EFFORT!
Good luck and hang in there. Your child really does need you, and even though it may not always feel like it, you are a great parent!
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But it’s an absolutely tremendous and an astonishingly beautiful art. You see, an artist has spent years committed to developing their extraordinary talents and skills. The great teacher is secretly driven by a simple love of community and belief in humanity. She completely pours her heart into the craft. But most people don’t notice this nuance, and that’s ok.
What’s not ok is that tragically, the art of teaching has been bastardized, which has the effect of shortchanging our kids! Meanwhile, a few corporate giants are getting richer and richer behind the scenes at the expense of our children, as they fall further and further behind. We complicate teaching by perpetuating myths of how education should be done. But we don’t even see the machine that drives our dependence on broken testing practices, boring textbooks, mind-numbing curriculum, and corrupt & unqualified decision makers.
But what about the “artist teacher”? What is her intention?
A great teacher uses her art to do one thing – intentionally craft meaningful and powerful learning experiences for her students. (Unfortunately, our system doesn’t support our teachers to do this. Instead, it tells teachers what to teach and how to teach it. Consequently, students are taught what to learn, but not how to learn.)
Why does this artist craft these experiences?
So her students can learn to craft their own future, one which is aligned with their personal strengths, interests, values, gifts, talents and needs.
So they can live with integrity, authenticity, confidence and self-esteem.
So they can grow up to do work that matters to them, that contributes to their communities, that harnesses their strengths effectively.
And most importantly, yet often overlooked, the artist crafts learning experiences so our children can grow up to have rich, meaningful, healthy relationships with family and friends. That’s what it’s really all about- it’s about people.
Yet…
We continue to muddy the waters with crazy testing, lame textbooks, boring curriculum, unqualified decision makers. And we are blind to it.
No, teaching isn’t rocket science. We don’t need the invisible powers that be to tell teachers how to meet the needs of their students and to scrutinize their every move with data, data, data. We are dealing with human beings here, not numbers.
If we truly support and empower teachers as professional artists, and help them build upon their strengths in order to better serve their students, we’ll do a much better job of empowering our kids to craft better futures.
Isn’t that the point? How do we change it?
Please SHARE. Or comment below with your thoughts! Thanks!
Note: The vid is 17 minutes long, but trust me, it’ll save you so much time and energy, it’s absolutely worth it. And… it’s pretty good!Download and Print PDF here: Daily habit questions cheat sheet By Seth Perler
It’s the end of the semester again…
It’s the end of the semester again, and the predictable pattern for many outside-the-box students rears it’s ugly head again. It goes like this…
Suddenly, someone, usually a parent, notices that grades have plummeted (even though everything seemed fine).
Someone, usually a parent, notices that something’s got to be done… and fast because the end of the semester is right around the corner.
Someone, usually a parent, tries in vain to talk some sense into the student, to make them understand the gravity of the situation, to light a fire under their butt.
The process of digging oneself out of this hole begins again with mixed results. Spring fever, overwhelm, avoidance, denial, and other common factors interfere with this process. Some kids pull it together, some give up, some try inconsistently. But we want the best outcome possible!
There has to be a better way, right? Well, there is, but there are a lot of layers to it and this post will scratch the surface with some concrete ideas you can use.
Download and Print the special PDF version here: Daily habit questions cheat sheet By Seth Perler
Here’s the Daily Habit Questions Cheat Sheet
Consider this…Want to turn it around in school and bring up your grades? Then use these questions on a daily basis until they become a part of your thinking. If you ask these, you can rest assured that you have covered all the bases. These are the types of key questions that every successful student must get in the habit of asking:
Plan: Did I make a good and realistic plan for today?
NOP: What’s my NOP (number one priority) for tonight? Do this first.
Planner: Update it mindfully.
Do I have any math? Science? Social studies? LA? Other?
Should I be doing any reading? Writing? Projects? Studying for tests/quizzes?
Grades: Check my grades thoughtfully.
Make a list of things that need to be acted upon (missing assignments, etc.)
Be forthcoming & honest with parents about them.
Advocacy: Do I need to email any teachers or go to office hours?
Backpack: Reorganize, go through all of it, stray papers managed.
Focus: How’s my focus tonight? What distractions need to be removed?
Temp check: What’s my biggest stress lately? What would help?
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🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Video transcript:
Hey everybody this is Seth with SethPerler.com, and this is a video for parents and students, both. If you’re a middle school, high school, or college student, or you’re a parent trying to help your child whether they’re in elementary or anything through college, this video is to help upgrade your grades at the end of the semester. So the end of the semester is coming up, in this case, for this particular semester, in April. And a lot of students tend to really fall apart and then all of a sudden May comes, and then school is out, and then they got a bunch of D’s and F’s, they’re retaking classes in summer school, or they have to retake classes in the fall. Basically, you don’t want to be getting D’s or F’s right now. That’s not good. Let me talk about a few things. First of all, I’m going to talk to you about how to specifically upgrade your grades. I have a gift for you, a downloadable paper that you can download and use however you want. I’ll go over that in a minute because this is key.But I want to start off by saying, first of all, even though I’m going to tell you how you can upgrade your grades, I don’t even believe letter grades are valid. I do not believe in letter grades. I think they are morally wrong, I think there are archaic, I think they’re outdated, but they’re a necessary evil. Technically, they’re not a ‘necessary evil,’ they’re just evil. But honestly speaking, I don’t believe in grades, but they do exist. And you do have to do well in school, and you want to be able to do well in school, and learn how to get A’s, B’s and C’s and pass your classes. Ultimately want to be learning as much as you can and that’s what it’s really about. I just wanted to practice that by saying that I don’t even believe in grades. If you follow my stuff, you already know that. However, they exist. So we’re going to deal with reality today — a world that exists with grades. Okay, you follow me? So, students, you don’t have to get thinking all about, “Oh, this is wrong.” I don’t care, they exist and we’re going to deal with that. Okay ready? Here we go.Your M.O.: If you’re the student it’s your pattern. Okay, your MO is your ‘modus operandus’ and is to do something like this. Let’s say that this is January and the semester starts. Things are going okay, your grades are okay, things kind of start to fall a little bit, but nobody notices. You don’t notice, your parents don’t notice, your teachers don’t notice. A lot of the times kids will start really strong in the first two to three weeks of a semester. Then it becomes February, you know, things can be dipping up, down, up and down a little bit. Now it’s March and things my kind of plateau. It’s April, things are going along and then BOOM! One day you look at your grades and all of a sudden you have two A+’s and for F’s, or some crazy wacky combination of grades. Usually, my students’ grades are all over the place. But the point is you have some very scary grades and something needs to be done. Often what’s going to happen with this pattern, your M.O. is: “Okay, everything’s fine.” You’re kind of in denial. You’re avoiding doing homework or turning things in, or whatever your issues are with having trouble, with getting homework done, or studying for tests, or whatever is going on. But all of a sudden one day, everything comes tumbling down and is like, “Oh my gosh what’s going on?” And your parents, obviously, are going to bug you and they’re going to be like, “What in the world is going on? We need to have a talk. We’re going to lecture you, we’re going to figure this out blah blah blah,” and you, your M.O. as the student has to be like, “All right. Don’t worry Mom. I got this taken care of. It’s all good. I’ll talk to the teacher tomorrow. I’ll fix it tomorrow. I’ll turn this in in a couple days.” It’s this cycle that often does not end as you intend it to. It often does not end with grades you think you’ll get. Often times my students are very unrealistic, they think “Oh, yeah pull it together,” and it doesn’t happen. That’s the reality. And again, I’m talking real world and I’m telling you the truth because these are the type of students I help and I help them to not get into this pattern in the first place. And if they do get into a pattern, I help them to get out of it. This is something that a lot of people don’t see. So I’m going to give you some tips on how to do this. You got to be honest about your pattern. Don’t worry about it. Don’t beat yourself up. Just be like, “All right, that’s my pattern.I’m in denial, I’m trying, but I let things lie they fall apart and we gotta recalibrate from there.“Now, what I’m going to talk about with this magical piece of paper is going to help you build habits. It’s not going to make it perfect, but I am intending for you to build habits because if you can build a habit of what’s on here, you’re golden. And know you’re not going to build a perfect habit right away.So I want to talk about perfectionism and being perfect. Do not worry if you do this perfectly. Just do it to the best of your ability and let it go. I don’t care if you do if you a few of these questions, if you have days where you forget about it, or whatever. Just do your best don’t worry about perfection. We’re trying to build a habit. If you forget or mess up or whatever, just get right back to it and ultimately you want to build a better habit. Not a perfect habit, but a better habit because the habit you’re in right now is not producing good results for you. And you want to habit that is for one reason. You want these habits for one reason: so that you can create an awesome future so that you can have a life where you’re able to pursue whatever your dreams are. Okay. I’m not saying that to be fluffy, I’m not saying that to be cheesy, I’m saying realistically you need to build habits so that you can work towards your dreams and have a fantastic future, not a mediocre life. Not an average life. I want you to have a remarkable future, a great future. And you can have it but you need good habits. Here we go.What I want you to do every day from now until the end of school is to use this piece of paper. I made you three different types. A big one that explains it in-depth, a medium one that is a little easier to read, and a micro version that you can cut out. There are four of these and four of these. You can tape them on your desk, you can tape them in your planner, you can tape them on your door, on the refrigerator, you can put them wherever you want. But these are going to have the magical key questions.Alright, let me tell you about the magical key questions. I put this together for you because these are the questions that I use with my students day in and day out. If you follow what I’m telling you on here, you can rest assured that you’re covering all the bases. If you’re a parent and you’re asking your kids, once you’re done with this, you can and need to stop the conversation with your child for the evening. Kids can get very stressed out, overwhelmed, they can feel a lot of pressure when you start hounding them or being overbearing with them with these questions or with however you question your children. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty anything. I’m just being honest, my students are stressed often times by their parents because their parents are trying to ask the right questions but it often feels like a lecture that’s never going to end. That feels very stressful for kids. So when you’re done with this as a parent, you can rest assure that you asked all the right questions. Let it go for the night. You’re looking for baby steps of progress that count. If you’re the student, you want to go through this every night either with your parents, or an accountability partner, or by yourself, but you these are the questions you want to ask. If you go through this, again, you will cover all your bases. Here we go.I wrote ‘Consider this:’ and these are the things I want you to consider every single day for the rest of school. And this is going to progressively make your pattern go up so that your grades can start to get better and you can end the year on the strongest possible note. Here’s what I wrote: ‘If you want to turn around in school then use these questions on a daily basis until they become a part of your thinking. So if you do this for the next 2 months and become more and more part of your thinking, so you don’t have to figure things out as much and it’s going to become more automatic. These are the type of key questions that every successful student must get in the habit of asking.’ Anybody who’s a successful student, if you look at your friends that are naturally strong students, they ask these type of questions very naturally. You don’t and that’s okay. That’s why I’m doing this. All right, here we go.Number 1: The first thing you’re going to do is plan when you get home from school. The best thing you can possibly do is sit down for 5 minutes and plan your night. I don’t care if you start your homework right after school, but if you actually take a minute to plan your night, you’re going to be much more successful. Most students and don’t plan; most struggling students don’t plan. They get home, they just pull out some homework and do some stuff, if they even do anything. It’s very overwhelming, they know they have a lot of things to do. You need to make a plan. I don’t care if you like planning or not, you need to get in the habit of making one. I personally have my students make it on just a small piece of paper, just the three to five things they have to do that night.Number 2: What’s your NOP? The NOP is the Number One Priority. N-O-P. What is your number one priority tonight? If you did nothing else tonight, nothing else, what one piece of homework would you do, what one project would you work on, what one test would you study for? What one thing is your most important priority. The NOP. The number one priority of the night. Ideally, you’re going to do your NOP first. Do it before all other homework and get it out of the way. Sometimes that’s not practical, but ideally, you’re going to do your number one priority first every night.Number 3: Planner. Now I said plan before, but that was just planning for tonight. Here for the planner, you need to update your planner. This is a piece of paper to write your nightly plan, but your planner is where you’re going to have all of your assignments and everything. So I wrote, ‘You should update your plan or mindfully. You need to ask yourself if you have any math, science, social studies, language arts, or other’ and I have it all listed for you. Should you be doing any reading, writing, projects, or studying for tests or quizzes. And they explain that. My students are professional procrastinators, and so am. I’ve been a struggle my whole life. How do you work with this? Well, they might have a reading assignment where they have three weeks to read, and yet it’s never in the planner. You need to ask yourself if you should you be reading anything, if you have any novels or textbooks or articles or things that you’re supposed to be reading and not wait till last minute. Do you have any writing projects, like big projects? Do you have any projects that you should be working on periodically and not waiting till the last minute? And should you be studying for any tests or quizzes? Not tests that are tomorrow, but tests that are next week. You should actually be studying way beforehand. So I have that question, you get that stuff in your planner. Math, science, social studies, language arts, reading, writing projects, tests, or quizzes. That’s what you get in your planner. Number 4: You want to check your grades. This is number four. Look at your grades thoughtfully. I don’t care if you have a B in the class, what I care about is the details of the grades. Do you have any missings, any incompletes? Do you have any zeros? Things that need to be addressed? That’s what I’m talking about. Looking at the grade book, not your actual overall grade, but what things need to be done. Here is what I said: ‘Make a list of things that need to be acted upon, you’re actionizing, the things that need to be done, the missing assignments.’ I also said with grades, ‘Be honest and forthcoming with your parents.’ Please do not lie to them about your grades. Now, if they’re hounding you too much about your grades, you have the right to set a boundary and say, “Mom, Dad, stop it. I don’t want to talk about grades every single day,” but they have a right to interfere in your life. If you’re getting D’s and F’s, they have a right to be asking about it. But you can set a boundary and say, “Look, let’s talk about grades two days a week, or one day a week,” but as it gets close to the end of the year, they have more of a right to ask about your grades. Okay, but if there is no problem, they don’t need to keep asking you. But if there’s a problem they have that right. Again, you can set your boundaries. Be honest and forthcoming with them, don’t lie. Don’t lie about it. Number 5: Advocacy. Do I need to email my teachers or go to office hours? Advocate. Here’s what happens. I say to my students, “All right, why don’t we email your teacher right now and ask them about this 0,” and they say, “Oh no, I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” And then the next day comes and they forgot to talk to them. Okay, look. Just stop resisting. If you trust me for the next month of school and you have any zeros are missings, or things like that, email your teachers or go to their office hours. Be proactive. Don’t be cutting corners on this. It’s getting to the end of the school year, advocate for yourself, this is for you.Number 6: Next, the backpack. Reorganize your backpack every night. It’s only going to take you a minute of doing it every day, but for the rest of school, I just want you to go through everything. Particularly if you have rotting food in there, that’s the bad get rid of it. But I’m not even as concerned about the rotting food as I am in your backpack than with stray papers. Because that’s what kills students. My students that misplaced papers, are crammed in the bottom of the backpack or they’re somewhere lost in the abyss to the backpack, get those papers out and deal with them every day. At the very minimum when you do your backpack do that Number 7: I want you to ask yourself about focus. How is your focus tonight? If you have homework to do you need to, you need to focus. However, focus has two parts. (1) is trying to focus, (2) the other is the removal of distractions. Turn off the phone, get it out of the room, don’t be using Snapchat and Facebook, and this and that. Close tabs, Minecraft, whatever your thing is, eliminate distractions. Take the dog out of the bedroom, lock the door so your little brother or sister can’t bug you. Whatever the distractions are, you need to focus and be removed distractions so that you can focus. Don’t fool yourself about things like that, you know, like really value yourself enough to be like, “I’m worth it. I don’t need the distractions when I’m trying to get my stuff done.“Number 8: Next is the last one. This is a temperature check. Ask yourself everyday, “What’s my biggest stress lately? And what is the solution to that stress?” Okay, you need to really think about this stuff so that you can respond rather than react to life. You don’t want to be in a reactionary life where you’re having your buttons pushed and you just react everything. You need to learn to respond and slow down and respond very mindfully to the stress in your life.All right. So that’s this. I made a couple of copies, whether your parent or student you can use these. In these two copies, I made the questions very short. This is the simplest of the three, the smaller one, and they’re just really quick bullets. So you can sit down at your desk, look at these questions every night, go through it real quick. It’ll take you five, 10, or 15 minutes to go through the entire thing and it will upgrade your grades tremendously. If you do this, and not perfectly, if you forget a day or two, or you one day you only feel like going through part of the list, or even if you lie about your grades and you feel guilty about that, you can always go back and apologize. If that’s a stress, what’s the solution? Maybe apologize for not being honest about it. The point is, don’t do this perfectly. But if you implement these for the next couple months of school as things are predictably going to fall apart for a lot of you, it will not and it will be a much better, smoother, more fun, less stressful end-of-the-year so that (1) you can have a better opportunity at an incredible future (2) you can have a stress-free free summer with no summer school. No repeating classes in the fall. No thoughts whatsoever of anything academic. You can really be free to really have space to really enjoy your summer and have an awesome, awesome summer that you really deserve. All right with that. I hope you have an amazing day and I’ll see you soon. Take care.
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Parents, sometimes kids use this word with biting tone.
But what exactly does “whatever” mean? What is your child really saying?
Often, it’s something like this:
“Look, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but honestly, I don’t like what you’re saying! I actually feel a bit threatened right now. You are threatening me getting something I want, getting my way, and I don’t like it.You see, the amygdala in my brain just got a message that there was a threat to my safety, and although this message isn’t necessarily based on mature, realistic decision making abilities, it feels unsafe. Yes, unsafe.So my amygdala reacted by sending a quick message to my adrenal glands, which sent adrenaline to my heart, which then sent the adrenaline to my muscular system so I could keep myself safe with fight, flight or freeze.Yep, that’s pretty much why I said “whatever”.“Whatever”, is my attempt to set a boundary, to get you to leave me alone. I know, I know, you are probably right, but I can’t hear it right now because my brain is not in that space. You may even be trying to set a good, healthy boundary with me that I need, but part of my job is to test your boundaries to see if I can really trust you!Anyhow, like I was saying, my nervous system is too busy being in protection mode right now, and I can’t even think straight. I am not rational or logical right now, although I will use plenty of compelling arguments with you right now to distract from the issue at hand. Look, believe it or not, I am trying, but I don’t have enough tools yet. “Whatever” is a tool that helps me avoid, and it works a lot of the time. But, you see, I know we need to have this talk, and a big part of me doesn’t want to, so I’ll resist… A lot! But I need you to figure out how to creatively engage me in this discussion, at another time, when you can help me feel safe enough to have it so it’s productive, understanding, so we can both be heard and we can find common ground. Ok?I do love you, I do not like that I act this way (although I’ll probably never admit it), and I do want/need your boundaries and wisdom (and no, I won’t admit this either). Meanwhile my body is telling me to get away from you. Please understand, and let’s try this another way.Thanks for understanding,Your child”
Me and my awesome younger brother AdamThis story may be more than you need to know, but I like to be transparent. I hope this is helpful.
Messages
As you know, I’m Seth, and you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I was the struggling student that I work to help nowadays. Yep, I was “that kid.” Kindergarten was fine, but here are some rave reviews quoted directly from my 1st-grade report cards:
“Slow worker. Very easily distracted. Loves school. Wants to be helpful. Very short attention span and never really gets into his work. Exhibits a very deep feeling and enjoyment. He loves stories. If I could only get him stimulated I know he would do well. He is a very thoughtful child. I think he is much brighter than he lets on and my hope is that as he matures and his short attention span increases, he will show greater academic progress.”
Even in first grade, I couldn’t fit in the proverbial box, and it only got worse in later grades. The same sort of comments appeared:
“Lazy. Unmotivated. Not living up to his potential. Daydreams. Needs to work harder. Doesn’t try his best. Doesn’t pay attention. Needs to focus. If he would just apply himself, he’d be okay.”
Well, here’s the message I internalized: I’m not okay, I’m somehow broken, there is something wrong with me. I’m a lazy failure. I can’t do it, nobody seems to see my effort, so I’m not enough. Why even try?
Of course, I had strengths, but they weren’t noted or built upon enough through traditional schooling, and I needed tools & insights that simply weren’t available back then. So, I struggled, a lot. I felt like a “lazy failure” and felt a great deal of shame. Sadly, I learned to dislike me.
Patterns
Adopted at the ripe age of 3 days by an incredible family in Columbus, OH, I was a happy kid, but I never quite felt like I fit in. There was a sense that I was somehow different. I was creative and my imagination was wild and vivid. I would draw entire stories on giant rolls of paper, spanning 30 feet or more. I would collect countless random objects to examine, take things apart, make cool inventions. Some of them even worked. I was a lover of the natural world; bugs, plants, animals, rocks, the forest, the sky. I was intuitive and highly sensitive to what was going on around me. And I was a free-spirited dreamer, adventuring through my world — but schooling would minimize this.
Year after year, my grades slipped. Instead of developing my strengths, I tried to fit into the expectations of the school. Square peg, round hole. My frustration and hopelessness grew and eventually I gave up trying or put in as little effort possible to stay off the radar. Unconsciously, it came down to this: school wasn’t worth much effort since there was little reward and I just ended up feeling bad about myself anyhow. I wasn’t able to access learning in the way it was presented and I felt like a failure.
I was tested for learning disabilities in middle school and there were none identified. They said I had a high IQ but there were no programs at the time, and just having that knowledge didn’t help me gain access to any strategies or tools to help. And these test results just left my parents and teachers more perplexed: “we know he can do it, so he must not want to.” Seems logical, but they were missing a big part of the picture.
So I floundered through high school. I did fine the first two years with minimal effort because I compensated well. I always was strong out of the gates each semester, but quickly lost momentum and got behind. I couldn’t manage all the minutiae, so I didn’t do much homework, and I didn’t know how to “study”. If I did homework, I rushed it and I often forgot to turn it in or lost it. I didn’t know how to be a student in the system. It was as if the other kids got an instruction book on how to be a student, that I was never given.
My grades really began to suffer in the 11th grade when I couldn’t fake it anymore. D’s and F’s became the norm as I became more apathetic and as my parents became more concerned. They watched helplessly as I lied and lied about how I was doing and as I pushed them away when they tried to help.
My grades were horrible, but I graduated high school. High SAT scores made it possible for me to enter Ball State University in a remedial program and on probation. The program required me to take 3 college classes in the summer, immediately after high school ended. I got 2 C’s and an A that summer. Ironically, the A was in Study Skills — I was always able to pull it together when the pressure was on, to make it “look” like I had things under control. At least it got people off my back for a bit longer.
I completely failed the fall semester and was put on academic probation. I then failed the spring semester, was officially kicked out of college and moved back home with the folks. They didn’t know how to help me, and I wouldn’t have accepted it anyhow. I looked for any job that would hire me.
I didn’t want to live with my parents — I wanted to be treated as an adult even though I acted like an irresponsible and helpless little kid. I ended up living with my grandmother, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. I tried again at a community college in Columbus, Ohio. Same pattern — started strong, optimistic with new resolve.
But things went downhill fast. Failed again.
By this time I was deeply hopeless and suffering internally. I felt empty. I felt like a complete failure and knew I would never be able to accomplish anything in life. What went wrong? Why was I broken? Why try? I gave up.
Turning it around
One day, after many months of self-pity and blame, I hurt so badly that I decided I would do whatever I had to do to give myself a real try once again. I was willing to do anything, including asking for help repeatedly until I got the help I needed.This was the hardest thing of all.
I began to change, slowly but surely. Momentum was building. I was having little successes. I got a minimum wage job I liked. I went home from work feeling good about what I had done. There was meaning in my work, and ironically, I was working with kids. And I thought I was pretty good at it.
I’m so thankful for that job because it literally changed the course of my entire life. It was for a company called AYS (At Your School), in Indianapolis. I don’t know if it exists anymore. I worked with a woman named Candy Hammond – I’ve since lost touch with her and cannot locate her. Nonetheless, she was a BRILLIANT teacher, and she showed me that you could positively impact a child’s life, that you can make a real difference. She was my first mentor and neither of us knew it. She inspired me to want to be better at serving kids. I would watch in awe as she would artfully listen to the students on a level so deep, it was almost spiritual. She attuned to the kids, she saw what they really needed, but not as students first. She saw their needs as human beings first. There’s a critical distinction here. I wanted to be able to help kids as she did. And this is how my professional journey began in 1993.
One day, while driving my old Mazda stick shift home from working at a school in Indy, with my long hair blowing in the wind, I noticed I had a big smile across my face and I realized that I wasn’t that hopeless person anymore. Somewhere in the past several months, those things that made me hopeless had been put to sleep. I was alive, invigorated. That moment, I realized then that I was always leaving work happy and it was at that moment that I dedicated my life to helping kids. I didn’t know how I would help and I didn’t care. All I knew was that I needed to go in that direction and find a path to serve.
I went back to school to become a teacher and worked harder than I ever worked in my life. I probably worked harder than almost everyone in my classes because I didn’t have strong student skills. I literally would sit to study, sometimes reading the same sentence 10 or 20 times before it would sink in, determined to succeed no matter how hard it was or how long it took. It was painstaking. Every trick I could think of to make learning easier I did. I didn’t know it, but I was coaching myself.
I ended up doing pretty well. Through some twist of fate, I was the student asked to represent my graduating class at Indiana University by speaking at my graduation. Me, the once “hopeless, lazy, failure”. Through all of this, I learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that kids don’t have to suffer, that they can be successful and most importantly, happy.
But there is no quick fix. It takes time, patience, persistence. Kids need the right tools. Schools need to meet students where they are at. They need to see students holistically and build upon strengths. Left-brained students often navigate the system just fine, as it aligns with their strengths. But there are many right-brained, outside-the-box thinkers that don’t fit the mold. They might be random, global, big-picture, poor with details, creative, quirky, or otherwise divergent, neurodiverse learners. The fact is, when struggling students are properly understood and educated, they shine.
Nowadays I love my life. Sure, I still have massive Executive Function struggles, but I know what to do about it. As a result, I’ve built rich relationships, a career that I’m passionate about, a healthy lifestyle, a positive outlook, fulfilling hobbies, and most importantly, I’m pretty happy. So, in the greatest humility, I feel infinitely grateful that I’ve found my strengths. It’s my hope that I can share them here in such a way that it helps more and more kids have increasingly better lives.
Shine on,
Seth Perler
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Teachers don’t have a choice (or a voice, for that matter) when it comes to standardized tests – they must proctor these tests or there will be serious consequences.
But what’s wrong with the tests anyhow? Why are more and more and more people opting out?
Well, I have countless problems with testing, but this video scratches the surface by looking at 3:
The people who are profiting and benefitting (nope, it’s not kids)
How the testocracy pressures teachers
How testing negatively affects our children
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Parents, I went on a bit of a rant here, but it ends well! Enjoy.
Below is the text from the email that inspired this video…
I’ve reached a peak frustration level with my 2e student. I have attended many parent seminars / conferences / talks / meetings (you get the picture) and after attending yet another last night and leaving frustrated, I thought I’d pose a question: If ALL the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time (especially kids with ADHD), why then does every bit of advice come with yet another app or website to introduce to your kid?”
– Andrea
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Video transcript:
Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome. It’s at. Perler.com. And I have a letter here from a parent that I want to go over with you. She says this is Andrea and she says I have reached Peak frustration level with my to East student and Touhy for those who don’t know means twice exceptional sun exceptionality is basically if you think about the bell curve, it’s either side of the bell curve. It could be exceptionality could be gifted and exceptional. It could be some sort of a disability Asperger’s autism. Dyslexia ADHD sensory issues. Any any type of quote disability you can think of so, you’re two evenings gifted and a star goes with some sort of disability, but this mom says I’ve reached a peak frustration level. And then it says I’ve attended many parent seminars conferences talks meetings, you get the picture and after attending yet another one last night and leaving frustrated. I thought I’d ask you this question. If all the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time, and I absolutely agree with that. I think it can be toxic to a lot of students and very difficult to change especially when they get into Middle School. If experts agree that they should have limited screen time, especially kids with ADHD. She says why then does every bit of advice how much yet another app or website to introduce to your kid? Okay. So here is my cynical yet honest answer. Why do they always recommend more apps or websites? Why the online learning when the curriculum for most of the well, really all the online courses I’ve ever worked with my students have been pretty much horrible. They often time are very poorly written very difficult to understand. They’re very choppy to go through there not motivating. It’s basically you do this thing. You answer these questions online. You get it done. There’s no real support usually on these things. And then you have all these apps that are supposed to help and all this noise noise noise all these things that so why are these people pushing this stuff? So if your parent and you go to some parent meeting and you here, oh, this is the latest and greatest new app for this or that Why are they telling you this? Okay, if we know that there’s evidence that shows that a lot of the stuff really. I mean kids they’re not just going to use the after going to be distracted by other things by Minecraft by Facebook buy whatever things they’re addicted to or consumed with online. They’re not just going to stay on that helpful app usually case oyyy well two main reasons. I came up with Monday. people make money After about money their Affiliates, and I’m sorry to be cynical and I’m not trying to be a jerk and you may be watching this and you may be someone who has developed a great app for kids that really helps will hey some apps to help and I thank you. Thank you very much. I’m glad you’re out there doing what you’re doing. Okay, there are some great apps that can help with certain things if they’re used properly right by speaking. If you’re going to these things there they’re making money off of it in some way or another now. I’m going to be cynical little bit more about it. She’s got a really think about this what’s going on their educational system. Okay, so we’re seeing what’s going on with politics today right? There is just some really wacky stuff going on. And as far as education, which is tied to politics politicians are making a lot of decisions about education. And what happens is we have a system where we have test And the tests are designed to look at the school or look at a child or look at a teacher gather data to determine the success of that school teacher or child. Okay. No do the test really show what they claim to show. I don’t think so. I’m not a fan of tests. They really bother me. They heard a lot of kids and I’m I’m I’m passionate about this today because I’ve watched so many of my kids is so stressed out by this time watch test interfere with three weeks of school every school. You’re not even counting all the prep time that teachers put into the test and all the money in blah blah blah. What what about test? Let’s look at Miss Pearson is an 8 billion billion dollar company, one of the biggest testing companies in the world. These people are making money now test you got to do well on the tests. So what do you need? Well, you need good. Text books textbooks. Have you ever seen a college textbook sell for $180? Like what what book cost $180 and then it’s the 17th edition of the textbook and the 16th Edition in the 15th. And the fifth edition cost on sale $150. And then what do they give the students for those textbooks $22 or whatever. I mean, it’s it’s a racket. Okay, the textbook companies are making big big big big big big big big money. And then of course you have if you want to do well on tests, you have to have a great textbooks. You also have to have curriculum. So there are all these curriculum manufacturers that sell textbooks in that sell different curriculum packages. So as a teacher being in schools, I seen a lot of these crackling manufacturers will bring in the huge boxes display boxes beautiful boxes design with all these different books and and all these supplemental materials and DVDs and all this stuff in this beautiful box. If you never seen one you should see it. It’s a sight to behold. There’s a thousand-dollar box there in and teachers can look at in principles can look at and say we’re going to teach teachers how to be creative. It’s not valued because we want them that doesn’t help the bottom line, right? We don’t teach teachers how to create a creatively differentiated curriculum how to think on their own that’s not encouraged how to make decisions that are outside the box. We don’t want to disturb the status quo. We want kids to be in the Box fit in the Box. Perform on the test so that the school looks good blah blah blah. My cynicism for why the apps is the same reason for all this stuff. It comes down to that somebody’s property do not get me wrong. There are phenomenal teachers phenomenal administrators phenomenal therapist phenomenal people who are involved with kid to help your kids. Who care about your kid. Those are the people you really want to hold on to you want to get your kids around them because they’re really invest in your kids because they love being of service to humanity through serving kids and helping them grow and have amazing lives. They’re not concerned with the bottom line or they may be by there. It is not their focus their focus is your kid. Okay, so they’re amazing people out there. So my cynicism does taking to count that are those amazing people. We need them. We need to reward them. We need to inspire them help them. Push them give them what they need to survive are cats. Okay, but my opinion is why money number to the number to reason why so many apps are pushed. It’s easy. It’s easy to stand on a stage and say hey if you use this out, this is great for kids. Here’s a list of 70 things that are going to help your kids blah blah blah blah. If you follow my blog if you watch my videos, if you look at what I’m saying fact is that helping kids make real change that helps their life and that helps them to launch a great future and have a great childhood at the same time is not easy. It is not we want why apps because we want Magic Bullets. We wanted to be easy. We want we want fairy dust and unicorns and and we want something magical that’s going to help us with our kids so that we can be assured that they’re going to have a great future and that they’re getting what they need. And if we just listen to these people and we just listen to the apps and we just do this. And if you’re a good enough parent, you’ll buy this stuff and you buy into this crap. And your kids will be okay. Working with these kids is not easy. Takes time. Patience effort persistence you want to change your kids habit. You can’t do it in a week. You’re trying to really change your consistency. For example at the parents instead of strong boundary about something. It’s going to take you a good six to eight weeks with your kid before they even believe you that the boundary really exist. You have to be so firm and consistent and loving and kind. This stuff is not easy. Parenting is not easy teaching is not easy, but especially helping a 2E child who has very very extreme extremes. That’s really challenging and it does require a lot of patience lot of time all this stuff. So with apps and new websites new this and that they may be helpful. They may serve a purpose. But they also may be helping somebody profit and that in profiting they may want you to believe that this isn’t easy way out. This is something that’s not going to require a lot of aspirin if you just do it. You’ll be okay. So what I’m here to tell you is that that’s not the truth. The truth is is that with consistency with understanding executive function with having outside the box solutions for your kid with keeping the big picture in mind, which is their future and their happiness with certain things. You can help your child transform their challenges and get to a place where they are able to navigate education navigate life and created great future. Absolutely positively, so I just really want to encourage you just want to make that short video to respond to that. Thank you so much for your email, and I hope that helps I will see you soon. Take care.
