OurWrightSide Weblog

Sara was “such a dreamer” in grammar school.

She didn’t feel that it was necessary to listen to the teacher.  She had other “more important things” to think about.  One day, during her third grade. she decided this one test was just too hard to waste her time on, so she drew a beautiful picture on the back of the test, forgetting that she had to turn it in.  And of course, it had an “unfinished test” on the other side.

The teacher immediately sent for Sara’s moma to come to the school, to make her aware of what her daughter was doing in class while her classmates were taking their test. Sara’s mother said, “Well , I look at it this way… they are mine at home and yours up here at school.  You know what should happen to her and I will back you up!”

WOW!  This stunned Sara.  She was terrified, thinking she would get a big whipping with a paddle. Instead, the teacher wisely sat down and explained to her what would happen in life if she grew up “stupid, with no education.” Her words made sense, it clicked in her head and from then on she decided she wanted to “be smart and prove to the teacher that she had a brain.” Her grades went up each year until high school.  She was on the honor roll each quarter or was knee deep in books, studying hard to get there. She learned it only hurt HER if she didn’t make good grades, just as the teacher had explained.

Sara (left frt), sister Geneva (right frt center) with Kermit and friends!

Sara says, “I tried to get my kids to think that way. One son made an F and he was wanting to join the scouts because he loved the uniform. I bought him the uniform, but told him that he needed to want to bring that F up as much as he wanted to wear that uniform. He brought the grade up to an A on the very next report card. You have to have motivation to do anything well, and that was a good motivation for him: that nice, new uniform.