We are always teaching our students. Even when we are not teaching, we are teaching our students. In fact, when we are not teaching is probably when we are most teaching because kids often learn by adult example.

So what is the example you set from the front of the room?

It’s pretty well known that scores of secondary educators in this country will be showing fluff movies over the course of the last few weeks of the school year.

Doesn’t that teach kids a whole lotta stuff we’d really rather not have them learn?

BTW, I am not talking about showing a film like Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful to cap a unit on Holocaust studies. (Trust me, I love the cinema.) But I am quite wary of showing The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift… in Math Class!

So let’s look at some of the things kids learn when two teachers approach the end of the year from different perspectives.

Teacher X (TX) shows fluff movies and does silly worksheets because they are counting down the days to summer and just can’t wait to head for the door.

Teacher Y (TY) works ‘em to the end trying to make the most out of classroom minutes over the course of the last few weeks of school but yes, still likes the idea of summer and is excited to take a break as well.

Things that TX is teaching by means of personal example:

• I don’t care if you learn anything else.
• This school doesn’t have the means to control me and prevent me from having a bad attitude/shortchanging you. (“Welcome to the real world, punk!”)
• Professionalism when you are a teacher, matters little.
• I only pay lip service to the phrase, “Your education matters.”
• Who says surfin’ ebay doesn’t pay? I am collecting full wages right now.
• You’ll be out of my hair soon enough.

Things that TY is teaching by means of personal example:

• I don’t just talk the talk up here, I walk the walk and in life, you’ll come to discover, this matters a great deal.
• It doesn’t matter whether or not this school has the means to control me… I am still going to carry myself as if I were a professional and do my job in the best manner I know how – as I have been asking you to do all school year long.
• Habits of quality are not faucets to be turned on and off. You can’t just flip a switch in life. If you want to be excellent at something, you must always strive to be excellent – otherwise you will not be.
• Learning doesn’t end so why would you ever assume there’s nothing more we should try to tackle in class before we take a summer break?

Obviously, there are so many more things we could add to each of these lists but what seems self evident is that if we really want to forge better character in our kids, we have to exemplify it ourselves via our deeds and not our language.

Phoning it in doesn’t mean you are not teaching; you are teaching things most parents would probably rather not have their kids learn from you.

(FYI, I am going to host a free webinar on Finishing Strong next week (May 19th from 6:30 – 7:30 EST. If interested, you can sign up here.)

I am always interested in reading what other writers have to say about writing. Even if they are writers I do not really read.

For example, here’s a quote I just read from an interview with Mary Higgins Clark…

The first thing you have to do is write. So many people tell me, “I’m going to write a book as soon as…..” The three fatal words are as soon as…. As soon as I learn to use the computer. As soon as I quit my job. As soon as the kids grow up. As soon as the dog dies. But trust me, as soon as the kids grow up and the dog dies, there will be a new set of excuses not to write which will be equally valid. If you are a morning person, get up an hour earlier and use that time to write. If you’re a night person, go to bed an hour later. But don’t say you’re too busy, because you’ll always be too busy!

Now I do not believe I have ever read a book by this woman — but something like 100 million other readers in this world have, so even though she may “not really be my thing”, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have something valuable to offer me on the professional advice front. (In Mrs. Clark’s defense however, I betchya she has read The Hoopster so NAH! LOL!)

The big point to this all is that when it comes right down to it, she is SO right. I mean so many people ask me about being a writer, how one becomes a writer, where do I “get an agent”, “land a book deal”, and so on they it seems as though they forget one thing.

You need to write.

And write and write and write.

I only mention this because summer is coming and there are scores and scores and scores of folks who “have that book that they have always wanted to write… as soon as…”

Is that you? If so, when do you think the “as soon as” aspect of your life is going to disappear? Because time will. If you do not get started in 2010 the year 2011 will still arrive. Me, I’ve got books I’ll be working on all summer.

Mary Higgins Clark does, too.

Do you?

Putting your butt in a chair and actually writing is the how authors who have sold over 100 million copies of their novels do it, it’s how I do it (goodness do I wish that I was in the former category, instead of the latter in the first part of this sentence) and it’s how the runaway bestselling book of 2011 was tackled.

You can’t hit any home runs if you don’t swing the bat.

The “as soon as…” syndrome — will it bite you in the butt this summer?

State testing ended last week but school doesn’t end for me until June 26. This far-too-easily sets itself up to be an educational dead zone, a time whereby teachers can simply fluff through the last few weeks of the school year and count down the days til summer.

And the truth is, the kids kind of expect us to do this. Well screw that! Unless each and every kid is being courted by Harvard, there’s work to do. (And even if they were being courted by Harvard, there’d still be work to do.) Besides, what am I going to do, show The Lion King for the next month?

Now don’t get me started on our math department. (Okay, that was a cheap shot. I mean we certainly have a few extremely hard working folks crunching numbers down the halls, but still, ask around… there are some peeps…)

Anyway…

So a student named Laura just came up to me in class after I assigned our final year end project. We’re going deep into propaganda with an Animal Farm and The Giver unit I am just starting right now whereby my students will write, produce, star in and direct their own 30-60 second commercials before we say hasta la vista to this section of their academic journey. (BTW, these projects are going to be wicked. I’ll be sure to post some as they come through but seeing as how we now have more tech tools available than ever before, I am fired up about how cutting edge these things are going to be… or so I hope.)

However, Laura just asked me about timetables for the project. Well, her vocab wasn’t as sophisticated. She didn’t use the word “timetables”. Her exact words were, “When’s this due, by June 12, cause I’m going back to Mexico then?”

“Like, for the rest of the school year?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“But school isn’t out until June 26th. Do your parents know this?”

“I dunno.”

“What about your other teachers? Have you told any of them this yet?”

“No.”

“So it’s May 27 and you are going to be leaving in 2 weeks and you haven’t spoken to any of your teachers about small little academic things like missing finals or anything like that. When were you going to tell them/us?”

“I dunno.”

“Laura, let me ask you a question,” I said trying to remain composed. “Do you think that leaving school 2 weeks early is going to impact your grades?”

“I dunno.”

“Laura, let me ask you another question. Do you think a person should ever be paid full time wages for part-time work?”

“I guess, not really,” she answered.

“Laura, I think you need to go think this through a bit more. Maybe have a discussion with your parents, your other teachers and so on… and then create a plan. I mean you can’t just leave school for the summer whenever you want.”

But the thing is, she can. And probably will. This happens every year to teachers like myself. It’s a scene that has played itself out many, many times for gobs of teachers in California, Texas and so on. Matter of fact, it’s so common that I literally pilfered the scenario from my real life as a teacher and used it in my latest YA novel The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez, a book about a teen latina who is literally and figuratively caught between both two worlds and two cultures.

But in fiction, I get to solve the problem with a-learn-from-your-mistakes-inspirational-and-happy-ending. As a real teacher, I don’t. Laura and her family are going to make their own decision about when summer begins and my input probably will not carry much weight.

Aaarrgghh!! If only they could see what I see. School is a life-raft in America and we have got to get more of our kids to recognize how fiercely they need to clutch it.

A quarter is 9 weeks long. 2 weeks early means Laura will only have completed about 78% of her required attendance. And Laura is, at best, a C student in my class, so if you do the math (75% of 78%), she’s gonna be at about the 58% mark minus taking her year-end finals.

Extrapolate that across the board in all her classes and she goes from being a C student to an F student.

Well, there’s always summer school, right? Oh wait, she’s gonna be in Mexico. Hmm… now I teach in a school with over a 45% non-graduation rate and Laura is gonna bail out on the last two weeks of her freshman year of high school. I wonder how this is going to play out when the numbers get crunched in 2012?