I talked about a week or so ago how I got involved in our local public school system by becoming a classroom tutor in an AVID classroom in my local middle school. The middle school that also happens to be the middle school I attended and the middle school where many seeds were planted helping me to become the person you know and love so much today.

This past Wednesday I spoke during the Great American Teach-In. Now, I’ve had a very interesting and long “career path” (if you can call that). I’ve worked everyday of my life since I was 14, and have had 8 jobs in that time frame, which when you figure that I am currently only 23 is pretty significant. I spoke to the kids briefly about my various jobs but, my presentation mostly centered around personal achievement and their need to begin to think about who it is they desire to become. I spoke on the importance of deciding now necessarily what they want to do from a job perspective with their life but, what they want to do from a mental perspective as far as the type of person they desire to become and be for the rest of their life. It was quite the experience. I had many students come up to me afterwards and ask me many questions and when they saw me in the halls the next day while I was working with the AVID students they stopped and asked me questions about things ranging from what our some college alternatives and even how to market themselves.

8th graders…wanting to know how to market themselves? That threw me back.

In conversing with these students though their is one common things I notice that pisses me off more than anything.

They have had few people believe in them up to this point in life.

Few people have told them that they can do or achieve whatever they want and they can succeed in whatever they do.

I got to looking at my own life and how I thought about kids younger than me up to this point and became disgusted with myself. You know, we spend a crap load of time focusing on what kids do wrong but, not a lot of time focusing on what they do right. My friend, Catie is the head coach of a high school girls JV basketball team and the assistant coach of the high school’s varsity girls basketball team. I attend as many of her games as I can mainly to show her that I’m proud of her investment in those girls lives. I consistently find myself biting my tongue because the parents in the stands with me aren’t cheering their kids on most of them are taking notes on what their kids are doing WRONG! Last season I almost got in a confrontation with one of the parents because after the game, a game the girls WON by the way, he did nothing but lecture her on all of her mistakes. Never a “Oh my gosh, what a great game dear,” or a “Wow! Way to go!” It was “well you would have got more points if you did this,” or “You won but you did is sloppily.”
Seriously!? Where is the believe in your kid!? Where is the affirmation of their athleticism and their achievement?

We’ve lost sight of what matters. Our kids achievement is no longer important to us because of it’s mental representation it’s only important because it means they’re going to potentially make more money in a job or career. Their success is not important to us, only the things they DON’T succeed in are.

We have to start showing kids we believe in them. Start standing up for them, start advocating for them. If we do this then we’ll see their believe in themselves rise, their advocacy for what they want to do will rise they will be good people. Sure, maybe their work in a fast food restaurant for the rest of their lives…THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT AS LONG AS THEY FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED!

We have got to get this idea that success and achievement looks like something…anything. Because folks, success and achievement…it is in the eye of the beholder.