Would Churchill Have Been Accepted?

It’s that time of year again when the NYC winter vortex is really generated by the storm surrounding semester 1 report cards (Oh, those narratives!!!) and high school decisions. Not even this recordsetting snowfall and chilly weather can make a child feel colder than an intolerant reaction to their natural, age-appropriate, and beautiful imperfections or send more chills than a regret letter. Here was our approach to both…

image credit: media.npr.org

Report Cards:

Email middle school parents a copy of Winston Churchill’s school report card (NPR.org), a document in which the headmaster (whose name did not go down in history) outlines all of Churchill’s horrible qualities as a young human being. Of Churchill, the headmaster wrote “Very bad, is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape with others. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere. He has very good abilities” (media.npr.org).

When I first saw this on display at The Morgan Library, I was reminded that our greatest strengths often get in our way and present as obstacles, until they are channeled in the right direction by either maturity or guidance. Our goal as educators and parents is to value those qualities, even in their messy stages, and figure out how to redirect them to a more constructive, positive outcome. We asked our parents to allow for honest conversation and fail forward moments along the way.

Decisions:

The reality in NYC is there are too many kids fighting for too few spots to selective schools (public and private), and even more students competing for even less available aid in independent schools. Any number of factors go into a high school acceptance, wait list, or regret decision, but the other reality is students see none of this. 

They only see, I'm good enough. I'm not good enough. or I'm good enough if my parents could afford it. They need our additional support through this outcome.

We approached this with a blend of counseling, team-building, and distraction. First, we had a “what if?” session during which we threw out all possible outcomes, from the best to worst case scenario. One student said, “What if I don’t get into any school and I have to move to Florida and be a beach bum?” to which we replied, “The weather is very nice in Florida!” To goal was to bring levity and optimism to an experience perceived by many to be solemn and all too final.

We followed that by discussing how to be a friend to each other during this decision process. What if I get in and my friend doesn’t? was a much more prominent worry than the opposite. It reminded us how magnanimous and selfless teenagers can be.

Finally, we stripped them of all their devices during decision day so that they would be with family when receiving the news and took them off campus for a little distraction therapy. The morning of decisions found our students taking pictures with the Lincoln statue at the NY Historical Society (with teacher devices, of course) and the afternoon engaged in offline learning in the rest of their classes.

It’s difficult to navigate this adolescent landscape where more and more, one feels either overinflated from the removal of obstacles or ostracized after stumbling on one. The benefit of failing and of subsequent disappointment is a hackneyed sentiment but still far from the reality of acceptance, much less encouragement. Thus, it’s important to keep reminding each other, parents, and students to embrace mistakes or disappointing outcomes...and to recognize them for what they are: opportunities.