Huntsville's Promise
Our Children Our Future
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Asset of the Week Achievement Motivation By Kay Douglas, Senior Consultant, Texas Association of School Boards I got a call the other day while playing a game with a couple of teenagers. It was a voice that sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place it. After a moment or two, I realized that it was Patrick, a young man who had lived with us for a year or so when he was in high school. The circumstances that led to that situation are not important but suffice it to say that he had hit a rough patch in his life and just needed some direction. He was a friend of my son and was 17 years old at the time he came to live with us. I guess he was a pretty typical teenager. He wore weird clothes, dyed his hair different colors and had weird haircuts. He didn’t talk much and had developed a fairly serious dislike of school. He had lost credit for his entire junior year of high school and felt alienated from the system. Underneath all of his teenage weirdness, I saw a frightened, lovable kid who, like most of us, just needed some TLC and self-esteem building. I talked him into coming to live with us and enrolling in the alternative school to work on recovering his lost credits. He agreed but was less than enthusiastic about the prospect. In fact, he seemed bound and determined to sabotage himself at every turn. Every morning, I would drop him off at school and by midmorning, the school would be calling. The complaints were numerous and varied. Patrick was asleep on the desk. Patrick refused to participate. I got more calls about Patrick than I had gotten about any of the other five children I had enrolled in school. Because I worked a couple of blocks from the school, I would leave my office and go over to the school to counsel with him. Although he was always polite and compliant for me, there was something about the authority figures at school that brought out the defiance and mischief in him. He played a daily game of driving them crazy and it was working. After several months of this, Patrick and the school authorities and I concluded that this was not going to work. For all of his intelligence and potential, he and the school were not a good match. Much to my chagrin, he dropped out of school. He got a job and joined the work force but I continued to encourage him to finish school. Shortly thereafter, his uncle in Oregon contacted him and encouraged him to come for a visit. I don’t know what happened up there but a few short months later, I got a letter with a graduation picture. He had done credit recovery and found what had eluded him here. I was so proud that he had found his way. I kept in touch with him through my son and later learned that he had joined the military. Words cannot express my shock and amazement since I could not imagine him yielding to authority and following orders. Then I learned that he was receiving special training and being sent to Iraq. I was able to see him briefly, just long enough to hug him as tears streamed down my face. He seemed so young and vulnerable despite his newly found bravado. That was the last time I saw him. I again kept up with him through my son and was frightened to learn that he had earned a Purple Heart. My son insisted that Patrick was okay but was characteristically short on details. Anyway, back to the phone call. He was visiting with his grandparents and decided to call and thank me. He said that if it had not been for me taking him in five years ago, he would not be where he is today. He told me about being under fire in his Humvee when his stationary machine gun was hit and exploded in his face. Despite his injuries, he was able to get to his personal machine gun and return fire. That was what earned him the Purple Heart, which he downplayed. He felt that he really didn’t deserve since his injuries paled in comparison to injuries some of his fellow soldiers received. He is currently back in the states, training “17 year old kids” and has re-enlisted. He will make sergeant in a couple of weeks and will be returning to Iraq in a few months. He recently married and is beginning to take college courses that will help him better lead the soldiers under his command. If you had told me five years ago that this 17 year old kid who bucked authority would soon be training other 17 year olds to follow authority and risk their lives in war, I would never have believed it. Then again, I recognized the intelligence and seeds of greatness in him that lie within each of us. All it took was the collective effort of his family and community and country to motivate him to achieve. Asset 21 addresses achievement motivation under the category of commitment to learning. At first blush, Patrick did not seem very committed to learning or motivated to achieve. Many young people appear to fit this description but many times they do not care how much adults know until they know how much we care. According to Patrick, getting his diploma became important to him because it seemed so important to me. Actually, I didn’t love him any more because of the diploma. I simply knew that it would open doors for him and allow him to use his God-given talents. Mary Kay Ash always said that what we put into the lives of others will come back and make us grow. I have certainly seen the tiny seeds planted in Patrick reap a bountiful harvest. Investing in our young people is the smartest thing any of us will ever do. |
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