Update on "This Is Why We Teach"

I'm writing an update to a note I wrote some time ago on Facebook about a former student. Here is the note:

A freshman girl came into my office today highly upset over her failing grade in my class from the previous spring semester. She vehemently criticized my teaching practices, my grading process, and my credentials. However, as she berated me while I just sat there and swallowed that harsh pill, her eyes began to fill with tears spilling down her heated face.

I explained my syllabus and class procedures to her, but she remained inconsolable. She finally listened to reason when I inquired about the classes she was taking for the summer. She replied that she was doing better in those courses than the spring courses. I posed the question to her that brought her to the gate of epiphany.

"What are you doing in these new classes that you had not done in my class last semester?"

She explained that she studied more and had a better attitude about school. She neglected her friends' requests to pledge or go out to clubs. Finally, she realized that I was not her enemy and that I was trying to prepare her for a cruel world who seeks only the best and brightest for its endeavors. Sometimes the best teacher is harsh reality.

She said to me that she learned a lesson from the failing grade and (I like this part) that she was "woman enough" to confront me about the situation and to work on herself in the process. I told her that students who spend four years or more in college (including myself) don't learn that lesson until it is too late.


This student is a junior now. Yes, she did pledge and was accepted into a sorority. However, she is also on the Dean's List. Days after I saw her name on Dean's List board on campus, guess who walked into my office to give an update?

She did not come to rub her success in my face, but she said, "I came to check up on you, Mr. Lawson, and to say thank you for kickin' my butt in English two years ago. I needed it."

If you are a teacher, then don't give up on your high expectations for your students. You should not have to lower the bar for them. That would be easy. No! They should rise up to the bar you set.

I am blessed and fulfilled by this student's story and more like her. I'm not waiting for my destiny to be fulfilled, but I am walking it out each day that I submit myself to serve God and people.