Stop Telling your Kids that School Will Prepare them for Life

My oldest son, Joseph, is very extroverted. Gabriel, his younger brother by two years, is the opposite. On any aptitude or intelligence test, I would bet that the older one scores higher.

Joseph is creative and bright. Very bright. At nine, he asks questions like, “If atoms are the smallest things, what are they made of?” He gets enthralled by documentary series on human life and wonders if babies in the uterus have consciousness at 20 weeks. At age four, he reasoned that if he could only have one half of a frosted pink cookie, he’d settle for the top half.

Yet our school system has deemed him a mediocre student because 1) he gets bored quickly in class; 2) he speaks his mind when he should politely lie; and 3) he needs more attention than his more introverted classmates. So he has less success in school than he otherwise might.

His mother worries about this. Five “infractions” a day on his behavior log isn’t uncommon. Two infractions seems like a success to me. But Gabriel, the one you rarely hear from? He gets zero infractions. He is a model student.

We want our children to be prepared for life. That vague statement justifies all sorts of worries and frustrations that get too easily overblown. We want the behavior logs to come home gleamingly empty. We want our kids to learn to play the game better.

So they can be prepared for life.