My Lowest Grade Ever

Stick with me on this post. At the end, it will come around to sports.

When I was a freshman in college, I thought I wanted to be a psychology major... initially. Things started well. In the intro class, the semester grade involved two tests, labs and a final. I did fine on the first test. But I was really doing well in the Labs. Not to sound like I am bragging but I was a Lab "Rock Star". I had spent two summers working in a psychology lab so maybe I had an advantage over other students. The environment of the lab was comfortable to me. I also loved the hands on of labs over memorization and regurgitation that tests require.

When parents weekend came in early October, my parents got to talk to some of my professors and my psychology professor pulled them aside to tell them that I had a promising future.

Then I had a loss in my life. A girl who I really liked -- can I say loved -- but did not live near, told me she had moved on to another. We had plans to see each other over Thanksgiving Break, and she told me she had changed her plans to spend Thanksgiving with others.

Hey, it happens. Rejections part of life. We move on...right?

Well, it took me a while.

In the while that I struggled with what felt like a punch in the stomach and today we would call grief or mild depression, I stopped going to class and doing my homework. I went into my second psychology test almost cold and the day I got it back, I started waking up. It said 33% F "come see me."

I went to my professors office during office hours and I remember only five words he said. But they will live with me forever. "You made me a liar." Of course he was referring to what he told my parents about me. I don't remember what I said other than "how do I improve." He said, I had a lot of work to do.

Luckily, I continued to do well in my labs and I started making up all the reading that I missed but I had missed at least two weeks of lectures and there was just no way to make that up in those days. I did the best I could on the final and ended up with a C+ for the class. I moved on from being a psychology major shortly there after. I just felt too shameful about my behavior to continue.

But although I still cringe in thinking about the incident, it had a lot of impact on me still today. The shame I felt has led me to see the importance of showing up -- even when you feel bad.

And here's where I see the value added of sports in schools.

I worry a lot today about the position of sports in schools. Varsity sports teams are the way the public often gets to know our school. So we love to promote our success. The success attracts attention of prospective families. The success of our athletes leads often to their ability to get into premier colleges that our families love to see and helps our school with a better college list. But often these aspects of high school athletics create a separation from athletics traditional educational role at schools.

I was walking through the hallway of another private school recently heading to a meeting and there was a teacher hugging a student who was upset. As I passed I briefly overheard the conversation between the two and it was the middle of the hallway, so I think the hug was to comfort the student who had performed not as well as they would have liked on some evaluation.

That's the way less than one's best academic performance is often managed. I don't think the words "you made me a liar" ever come out of a teachers mouth today.

But that brings me back to the importance of sport and its ability to reinforce good behavior and bad -- well lets call in my case -- immature behavior.

I was always told that the best teaching happens when we are able to give quick immediate response. That's what happens in sports. When we screw up, we know it pretty quickly.

The word we often hear in the academic world today a lot is we want to be a nurturing environment. I think that's why you often see students disappointed in themselves being comforted at schools, and I think that is a good thing.

But with all the studies that seem to show we are not doing such a great job of teaching grit to our students -- I am not referring to North Shore here but schools in general (see link below) -- where is the opportunity for kids to wallow in disappointment or even failure as I did and come out the other side better.

I think the best place in schools today is sports. So I like the fact that sports are required at North Shore. I hope we lose some heart breakers and occasionally get skunked. It may not be what we want to brag about, but it is important none the less.

Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges -- Psychology Today