Laziness: The Silent Killer

“ Mr. Fletch, you’re supposed be our meal ticket outta here!”

“Hey Mr. Fletch, can I borrow a pencil?”

“ I don’t have one”

“ You have one in your pocket!” 

“ Well, that’s mine. Why don’t you have your own?”

“ I do… I just don’t feel like going into my book bag to get it.”

Seriously?! Or I hear, “Man, I gotta bend down and look through my book bag?!” What in the hell is that?! And it doesn’t stop with just that. The line I hate the most is, “I tried…” You’re in high school now. It’s time to start succeeding. Some of my students hand in homework, a quiz or a test and the first thing I hear is, “Hey, I tried.” And sometimes all they’ve done is put their name on the quiz or test with the plea… please don’t faill (misspelling not mine) me, I tried my best. What did you try? My response when I give them the test back is, “I tried not to fail you, but I couldn’t not do it.” This student didn’t try anything, but the responsibility of if she passes or fails will fall on me. What is this? I recently received an email from a former student sarcastically thanking me for failing her. In my response I told her that I didn’t want any credit for her grade and that she earned it all on her own. This entitled belief of something for nothing is beyond me. It’s as though they’re ( the kids) being bred for failure. I’ve been told, “You have to make sure that the kids feel good about what they know so that they continue to come to school.”  I thought that was the idea behind studying and getting good grades. And I love this one, “The parents are our clients and we have to make sure they feel comfortable.” Make them feel comfortable? Yes, by all means make them feel welcome but comfortable? If they (the parents) feel comfortable as a result of feeling welcomed and informed of their child’s activities in school, great. But, I’m not throwing a party here. Many of the people whose children we as educators rearrange our lives for only show up to conferences for extreme reasons (expulsion or to retrieve a confiscated cell phone). Where is the responsibility of our “clients” to send us children that want to be influenced and taught? By calling our parents clients we are freeing them from all responsibility from their children. Thus, placing a responsibility to not only teach their children but to also satisfy them (the parents) as well.

I decided to give an open notes quiz. It was pathetic! The only rule for the quiz was that you had to use your own notes. More than 75% of the students didn’t have any notes with them for one reason or another. And I love hearing, “We were supposed to be writing that stuff down?” When will some inner city schools offer a study skills and priorities class? Getting back to the quiz, a young lady says to me, 

“You only did this because you know we don’t take notes!” 

“Some people take notes, and hopefully this will encourage the rest of you to start” I said. 

They haven’t put their names on the quizzes yet and the questions begin, “What are we supposed to do?” I’m already tired of saying, “Read the directions!” The response is the same “Why don’t you just tell us?” Why do I have the feeling that the word of the year is going to be dependence? This refusal to think is dumbfounding. But I don’t think that not thinking is something that just happens. This skill is learned. These kids have been trained to depend on something their whole lives. So naturally they bring this skill to school. They depend on their circumstance to be enough to get them through. They depend on teachers being too tired to want or not knowing how to deal with them. They depend on social promotion to the next grade. Hell, they bank on it. Then, “it depends on if I passed my proficiency tests if I graduate.” Why is there an “if” in your statement? Why aren’t you saying when I pass? (And if, and or when they graduate, is it only to graduate to the next level of dependence (welfare)?) How does merit and hard-work not sound more desirable? Do they have examples of these qualities at home? Or are we (educators) supposed to magically instill this within their child during the hour a day that we have them for a particular subject?

Before a quiz a young lady asked, “Do we get credit for trying?” So I asked her, “At your job, do you get paid for trying?” When she said, “No”, I told her, “There’s your answer.” And it’s not as if they’re going to try. They will simply just write something down because they know it doesn’t matter. It’s like summer school. Students know that this safety net is there so they don’t put forth a real effort during the year. Hell, if you can make up a semester in three to four weeks… why not. I don’t feel that summer courses should be offered to students who have lower than a fifty per cent as a failing grade or to those whose absenteeism is simply ridiculous. If a child is failing with a percentage point that shows true effort, yes help them. But if a student is absent (unexcused) far too often and or when they are there they are causing problems and or not doing anything, this child should repeat the course. And there should be a rule for students who are athletes and only want to put forth effort during the quarters of their sport. During football season, all of those student athletes work (many of them work enough to get a D) during the first and fourth quarters because that keeps them eligible. The basketball players work during terms two and three. When their off terms arrive, many of them sit in class and clown, try to sleep, or wait until the final weeks of the term to ask for make-up work. Another line that accompanies, “I tried…” is, “ I’m gonna do what I can…” 

Just do what you can erases the responsibility of effort and consequences to failing. It allows you to fail repeatedly because there is always someone there to make sure that you won’t suffer any consequences. “ Do what can” helps breed excuses as to why a person can’t do something before effort is even a thought. I had a student tell me, “You’re the teacher. You’re supposed to be makin’ this easier for us!” “Makin’ this easier for us.” So, should I continue to dumb down education so that I don’t hurt anyone’s self-esteem? I feel that I have already slowed down to a pace that still allows me to teach what they will need to be able to pass the next level of Spanish as well as the written portion of a foreign language entrance test. This too is angering because I can only get most of them to a point to pass to the next level. Many of don’t know how to strive to learn for a level of mastery.  Am I allowed to challenge the minds of these young people? “Makin’ it easier” is what “ Do what you can” creates. It also creates a belief and feeling of inferiority that leads back to what I stated before, dependence. The thought that becomes instilled in their minds is that this is all I have to do and I’ll still pass. And if they (students) don’t receive full credit for simply turning something in, they become irate. 

“Why did I only get half credit?”

“ Because you only did half of the work.” 

“ So, but I did it!”

So I ask him, “ If you owned a restaurant would you pay employees for a complete two weeks of work if they only showed up for one?”

“ Naw, that would be stupid! If they don’t work, they don’t get paid!”

“ Well, I’m the employer, you’re the employee and the grade is the payment.” 

“Well, that’s different because this is school.”

“ So, you can’t see the relationship between this and school?”

“Yeah, I can see it. But y’all supposed to be makin’ it easier so that we learn and be able to get a job.” 

“ Do you understand that life is not going to make it easier for you. What I’m trying to do is make you able to compete in life. There is a lot of tough competition out there and life is not interested in makin’ it easy for you, believe me. My makin’ it easier now is not doing you a favor in the long run, trust me.”

My first year of teaching in the inner city public school district, I was speaking with a gentleman about the students to get his thoughts about the lack of ability in some of my students. 

“I don’t give homework. They’re not going to do it. So, why give it? You might want to lower your expectations or you’ll continue to be frustrated. This not the private from which you came.” 

I’m screaming to myself, WHAT? Is it that only private school students deserve to have high expectations set upon them? My colleague ends our conversation with, “ A lot of these kids don’t get it.”

So, help them get it. Expect something from them and teach them how to raise the bar of achievement within themselves. I read an article by Walter Williams in October 2007 that stated: People with such a tolerant mind set are in effect saying that black people are not to be held to standards of conduct and academic expectations that might be enforced for others. That’s a disgusting and debilitating notion. This article also comments on the amount of violence that has taken over inner-city school as well and continues… I guarantee that years ago, such nonsense would not have been tolerated, and a person making excuses for barbaric behavior by black students would have been considered a lunatic. This barbaric behavior, in my opinion, includes lackadaisical attitudes towards education. Again, I think of the soft racism of low expectations that Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum speaks of in her writings, Can We Talk About Race? and Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?. 

During my first years in public school education, I was given the “opportunity” to teach a group of at risk students. After a short period of time with them I thought to myself, for who am I giving the opportunity to rest? After a while I realized that it was a mixture of problem kids and lazy kids. Right from the start the noise level and defiance were set on high. As soon as they walked in they started yelling, 

“Aw, man! I ain’t in this class! This is the dumb class! 

I interrupt him, “First, lower your voice, please. It’s too early for this much noise.” Then I ask, “Now, do you think you’re dumb?” 

He answers, “Naw, I ain’t dumb. But I know he dumb (pointing at a student) and I know he don’t do no work either (pointing again)!” (Laughter) 

I have to tell him, “Okay, stop pointing at people and talk to me not at me. Why is it that this is the dumb class?” 

A girl says, “Go downstairs and look into one of the dumb classrooms and you’ll see a teacher with seven or eight students just sittin’ there! I need to talk to my counselor!” 

I inform her, “Your counselor placed you in this class.” 

She stands up, “Well, I need to call my mama.” 

Now she needs to call her mama. If she had told her mama about school (grades, problems, etc) or if her mama would have asked about school a long time ago (elementary and junior high) maybe she wouldn’t be here today.

 I ask her, “Well, what were your grades last term?” To this question I get almost an identical answer from them all…Three F’s, two D’s and a C. One boy’s only passing grade was in gym (with a C!). 

So I say “It’s not that you’re dumb. You’re just lazy. You’re here so that you learn some study skills.”

“I know how to study!” one young lady says (With lots of attitude).  

I respond, “Please young lady. Three F’s don’t say this is a top student let alone average.” So I ask , “How do you all study?” Not one of them leaves out…while watching television. Have we in public education been reduced to training the next wave of worker ants? Is this what No Child… has left behind? I don’t view passing a test as an indicator if learning has happened. Don’t just sit back and blame the system parents, help us make it better and more productive! Don’t just accept that your child has passed a required test and can now move to the next grade. Do you truly believe that your child’s education is helping create a humane, responsible, creative person? Hold your child’s school faculty/administration, superintendent responsible. And if that doesn’t work, hold your council members and state representation responsible. I know a lot of you work (a lot) and it’s difficult sometimes to check on all of this but that’s no excuse. It sure as hell isn’t a reason. My mom worked a lot too. And she managed a way to ask and check. If you’re not going to be a physical presence in the school, be in your child’s mind at all times. The constant warning from my mom was enough... “If I get a call at work from school telling me…” And my teachers knew that using a phone call home as a threat would work. And I wouldn’t tell a teacher as some students do today,” Go ahead and call. She’s just going to cuss you out too.” And it has happened. I’ve called a home only to be told, “I’m tired of teachers callin’ my damn house to talk about my child! What in the hell do you want me to do?” Well, lets start with be a parent and get involved in your child’s life. And right now his life depends on getting an education.

Today’s uproar came about because I wouldn’t give them twenty minutes to study before passing out the tests. This really confused me. The class only lasts for forty-five minutes. You can’t take this in twenty minutes! And besides, why didn’t you study at home? 

A young lady asks, “Well, do we get a retake?” 

Confused I ask, “A what?”

“You know, a retake if we don’t pass it. Because I know I’m gonna fail.” 

I then ask, “So expecting you to study so that you put your best effort out when you’re supposed to is silly of me?” 

“Well, unless you want a lot of people failin’ your class.” 

Now I’m annoyed, “Don’t you all get it? You’re not directly hurting me by failing! You’re not only failing my class! You’re failing yourselves in life! Your bosses at work will not want to hear… “I know I didn’t do what I was supposed to do yesterday. Can I have some make up work?” Then the defiance sets in… “Well, I ain’t takin’ it!” And some didn’t. They put their names on it and gave it back to me. This action gets some laughter and approving nods as if they’re saying, “you showed him”. 

A young man asks, “Do we get points for spelling our names right?” (Yes…these are high school students asking me this.)

 I calmly answered, “This is not the S.A.T.. If you can’t spell your name correctly by now, you should leave. You’re in the wrong class.”

 One young lady walked into my next class announcing, “I’ve already told my grandmother that I’m going to fail this test. So, I don’t care.” This student hasn’t seen the test yet. She doesn’t know what’s on it. But, she already knows that she’s going to fail… I wonder why? What she’s telling me is that she didn’t study. I wonder what the grandmother said to her. I know what mine would have said. I would’ve gotten a lecture on the suffering of black people and the struggle to get an education.  

Another student tells me, “If we get a bad grade it’s because of you.” Yeah, blame the man who put notes on the board, created in class activities, homework, and a review session for you to succeed.  

Another says to me, “I should keep a folder. Then I’d have all those papers you hand out.” I love hearing this in November! “ Do what can” helps breed excuses as to why a person can’t do something before effort is even a thought. I had a student tell me, “You’re the teacher. You’re supposed to be makin’ this easier for us!” “Makin’ this easier for us.” So, should I continue to dumb down education so that I don’t hurt anyone’s self-esteem? I feel that I have already slowed down to a pace that still allows me to teach what they will need to be able to pass the next level of Spanish as well as the written portion of a foreign language entrance test. This too is angering because I can only get most of them to a point to pass to the next level. Many of don’t know how to strive to learn for a level of mastery.  Am I allowed to challenge the minds of these young people? “Makin’ it easier” is what “ Do what you can” creates. It also creates a belief and feeling of inferiority that leads back to what I stated before, dependence. The thought that becomes instilled in their minds is that this is all I have to do and I’ll still pass. And if they (students) don’t receive full credit for simply turning something in, they become irate. 

“Why did I only get half credit?”

“ Because you only did half of the work.” 

“ So, but I did it!”

So I ask him, “ If you owned a restaurant would you pay employees for a complete two weeks of work if they only showed up for one?”

“ Naw, that would be stupid! If they don’t work, they don’t get paid!”

“ Well, I’m the employer, you’re the employee and the grade is the payment.” 

“Well, that’s different because this is school.”

“ So, you can’t see the relationship between this and school?”

“Yeah, I can see it. But y’all supposed to be makin’ it easier so that we learn and be able to get a job.” 

“ Do you understand that life is not going to make it easier for you. What I’m trying to do is make you able to compete in life. There is a lot of tough competition out there and life is not interested in makin’ it easy for you, believe me. My makin’ it easier now is not doing you a favor in the long run, trust me.”

 Whining and complaining is as natural as breathing for some of these students. Another student chimes in, 

“You’re supposed to be givin’ us the answers!” 

I answer, “But, I’ve given you the tools to get the answers.” 

“Mr. Fletcher, why don’t you just give us the answers? Ain’t nobody got time to be lookin’ up all these words.” 

So I ask (sticking with the work analogy), “After they have trained you at work, does your manager do your job for you?” Immediately comes the response, 

“That’s different.”-“Why?” I ask.

“Because I’m getting’ paid”, he says. 

I continue…“So you don’t see the relationship between your education and a job? 

He says, “Well, I know you need a diploma. Anyway, I already got a job.” 

I decide to stay with this and ask, “What happens if you want to get a better job?”

“I’ll just apply and if I get it I get it.” 

“So, you’re willing to just do what you can and then hope for a chance at something better, instead of doing what you can to create a possibility not based on only hope but also merit to get something better?”

And it’s the waiting that’s killing independence and mobility. I had a student tell me once, “When I’m grown, I’ll care but right now I’m just tryin’ to have fun.” Hell, this kid was damn near grown then! I think he was seventeen in the tenth grade. I got a news flash for you slick… when you’re grown you won’t be having fun because you’ll be too busy living out the theme song to Good Times, “ Temporarily lay offs… easy credit rip offs… scratchin’ and survivin’… waitin’ in a chow line… ain’t we LUCKY we got ‘em?” I don’t know about you but none of those lyrics sound like fun to me. 

And there, lies a dilemma…Do what you can vs. Do what you can. Do you do what you can to succeed or do you do what you can in order to get by. The good students that I have feel so powerless to make any changes at the school because they’re outnumbered by those students who don’t do anything.  I’ve already heard, “Why should I do anything? No one else is.” I try to tell them that they’re not going to school for everyone else. “You’re here for you and your education.” It’s sad sometimes to see the packs of intelligent students around campus. They look like a herd of potential prey trying not to be the next victim of ignorance and violence. It’s simply not right to feel as afraid as some of them feel. And why are they afraid? Because the other students do what they can to just get by use their desire to want to succeed as an excuse to beat them down because “they think they better than people.” And it’s the excuses that “do what you can” breed that these kids see as reasons. Then once these “reasons” become passed on from parent to child, they over time, transform “ do what you can” into “that’s just the way it is.” And that mentality is much harder to break because now it’s instilled as fact. Once the transformation occurs is when you hear statements like, “ You know how black people act” or, “We black, don’t nobody care.” But wait, I’m black and I care. Sometimes when I look at my students, their eyes and body language ask me, why are you trying so hard? These are the moments when a deep sigh leaves my body and another breath is needed for enough strength for me to ask, “why aren’t you trying this hard.” But then I think to myself…“do what you can” kills effort.  When effort leaves, independence and growth follow. 

When we allow laziness to dictate effort, achievement is lost.