I wasn’t always a great student. When I was young, I showed promise as a student. My mother has likes to brag that I started school with a 5th grade reading level. I picked up mathematics rather quickly and I enjoyed it. My interest in baseball probably helped in this area. As my school years passed, I learned two things about myself. First, I learned that I could pass classes by just paying attention. I concluded that I didn’t need to put very much energy into studying or taking notes. The second thing I learned is that, if I didn’t have interest in a subject, I would give just enough effort to pass.

By the time I got to high school, I had terrible study habits and refused to do more than 15 minutes homework every night. The result? I graduated with 2.3 GPA and had horrible to non-existent study habits. However, at the same time, I scored average scores on the Pre-SAT but my ASVAB scores in math and reasoning exceeded the 90th percentile. I received brochures from Boston University and an all-math school in the Northeast. I also received an offer from the University of Virginia where they Army would pay for my education, provided that I participate in ROTC and join the Army upon graduation.

I never pursued these options so my first fall was spent in community college. After one semester at community college, my GPA sat at a 0.25. I knew I was intelligent but couldn’t bear going to class and studying. I spent the next 10 years in low paying construction and surveying jobs and living with my parents. Then, in 1988, I met the woman who would become wife. She convinced me to return to college to be a pharmacist. So back to the community college I went. Except, this time I was in contact with a school guidance counselor who was a mother of my stepdaughter’s friends. She introduced me to a program that would forgive my pitiful college grades. (Occasional college classes has raised my GPA to 0.63 and later to a 1.8.) By the time I graduated in 1995 with an Associate’s degree in Science, my GPA was raised to a respectable 3.2.

I then transferred to the University of Georgia to pursue an undergraduate degree in Secondary Mathematics Education. (I was turned down to all the pharmacy I had applied because my grades were good but not great.) After a lot of struggles, I finally graduated in 1999 with a 2.6 GPA. After completing my student teaching (which I failed), it was off to a teaching job in California. Then to Virginia, because my father and mother-in-law got cancer.

After teaching for 5 years, and being disappointed about my pay, I went back to California and land surveying. (This time the pay was much better. My one week paycheck in surveying was equal to my bi-monthly paycheck in teaching.) After about 5 years of California surveying, I was bored and missed teaching. So it was back to Georgia and high school math teaching. I missed teenagers so much that I didn’t care about the pay. I was gonna be back in the classroom.

I am still employed by that same school district in Georgia but I am at the third high school since returning to teaching. Not long after arriving in Georgia, I completed my Master’s degree in Sports and Performance Psychology. This time, the GPA was much better (3.9). I discovered that, if the subject interests me, I can do rather well at it. And I love sports and performance psychology. In 2012, I took that lesson to another graduate school and graduated with a PhD in psychology (Consciousness and Spirituality). I was able to maintain the new high standard and graduated with 3.8 GPA.

Why did I tell this rambling story? To make the point that I know what it takes to be a good student and I know what it looks like when it’s not going so well. I know that sometimes a kid is not ready for college and sometimes a college is not ready for a kid. And, without interest and ambition, a kid will never really succeed in the education arena.

2am-epiphany.com