A Failed Attempt to Instill Ambition and Finding Something Much Better

A few weeks ago Noah, our oldest, received his mid-year report card. Interestingly, the report card comes in the mail and is addressed to us "The Parents of Noah Srajek." It is a computer print-out, actually, printed in the "least ink" option on cheap, greasy looking paper.

Why, I wonder, is this letter addressed to us? For, not only is its content the result of Noah's efforts in school, not ours . . . we also expect our children to have ownership of their school performance. But how do we accomplish the latter, if we continually put the parents between the pupil and their grades? I am left to wonder, too, why our boys received their Tae-Kwan-Doh certificates on thick grade A paper, but their school report cards come on paper that, arguably, would not meet the standard for toilet-paper?

I am not sure, if a German report card (Zeugnis) still looks the way I remember. But it sure was an offical document. It included number grades, either typed in ink or written in cursive by the class-room teacher, the teacher's signature at the bottom left and the principal's signature in the bottom right corner. Our Zeugnis also included a written assessment of our efforts during the past six months. Every student was handed their report card on report card day. We were expected to take it home, show it to our parents and put it away, in a place were it was safe.

While I don't want to spend much more time talking about report cards I do want to point out this one thing: My Zeugnis meant something to me. I knew that especially the written part was intended as a reflection of what I had accomplished (or not accomplished) that year. It was feed-back anticipated by me with some apprehension but, also, with some hope for encouragement. And it had my name on the top of the page, not my parents'.

This, perhaps, sets the stage adequately for what I really want to talk about: ambition. Following his report card's arrival (the grades weren't stellar, but also not that bad), Noah and I had a conversation about it. His first reaction (after I told him that "we" had received a letter with "his" grades) was that he was perfectly satisfied with his grades. This is a "good" report card he said, after he had briefly, very briefly, examined it. I told him it was average but, in my opinion, not "good." "Don't you," I asked, "don't you want to do better than this? Does this not trigger your ambition to do better?"

My question was asked in a fairly nonjudgmental way, by the way, I really just wanted to know how he felt about "ambition" which starting in grade eight had become such an important part of my way through school. Noah's response, as so many before, floored me. "Look, Papa," he said, "you rode your bicycle through the Alpes, that is crazy. I would never do anything like that." What he was saying was "I'm not going to talk to you about ambition, because your standard for what counts as ambition is wacko." It's always good when our children hold a mirror to our faces (especially in the middle of a conversation we had intended to focus on their behavior and thinking, not ours).

I have to admit that there was a bit of a flare-up at that moment. I felt I was losing control of my honest effort to help Noah along with his school performance. I caught myself though and we sat down on the couch and began a conversation that lasted about 45 min.

Let me say up-front that it was a great conversation. I don't remember every detail but what I do remember, viscerally, is the feeling that he and I were connected in a conversation with clearly different view-points and opinions. It was the kind of conversation where, in the end, I was full of admiration for Noah's articulateness, his ability to nuance his views, and his ability to stand on the feet of his own opinions. He did not, like I when I was his age, feel much of a need to agree, but he did feel a need to understand and explore.

The real surprise turn in the conversation came with him saying he had tried ambition but felt it wasn't working for him. Had I stopped listening at that moment I probably would have thought something along the lines of "yeah, you and the other 2,000 students at Urbana High; ambition is just not working for you, right." But I did keep listening and my budding sarcasm was turned on its head when he continued by saying "the thing is, when I am ambitious I get obsessed. It drives me crazy; and I just don't like that feeling and who I become."

Wow!

Just a bit of background here. Noah has, in my estimation, always had a very strong need to please and be liked, but he has an equally strong need not to be driven by wanting to be liked. He hates the slavery that comes from doing things others demand just so that those others will like him. Noah is, in other words, fighting his ambition to be liked to the extend that it controls him and makes him feel inauthentic. He has always been suspicious of grades as a cheap kind of praise meant to manipulate rather than encourage him. But he also admits that grades can be very seductive to him.

What I am left with is an incredibly strong sense of respect for Noah's need for freedom and authenticity. Yes, I am sure that sometimes he pushes this too far and could do well by trusting another's assessment of his performance. There are two or three teachers he trusts in that way. However, this conversation tells me beyond the smallest doubt that he is in the middle of that epic battle all teens are fighting, the battle for true independence, autonomy and freedom. Noah's single-most important developmental task right now is to push away from us, his parents (to whom the grade-report was addressed). To the extent that we bluntly prevent that from happening we take the risk of seriously wounding him and, as a result, making it more likely that he will move further away from us emotionally than otherwise necessary. But, here is the paradox of attachment, in its teenaged version: As he pushes away from us and seeks his independence he continues to need us as his "secure base." This means that we must not push him away from us but, instead, continue, as we did right from the beginning, to encourage and affirm our love of him, average grades, broken plates, badly cleaned dishes, etc. not withstanding.

I did bring up that there might be a chance to control ambition lest it get out of control the way Noah fears it might. And, to his credit, Noah informed me that he has started an experiment this semester that involves his commitment to completing every last piece of his homework, every day, in order to see, if it actually makes a difference. I know that many parents would simply balk at this point (if they haven't done so already). Giving our children the sense that it's okay to "experiment" with a good school performance? To many this will seem absurd, if not plain destructive. I tend to believe that it will increase Noah's sense of accoutability, self-determination and his ability to gauge and use his energies responsibly.

Still, I wish that schools, in formal and informal ways, would take more seriously their responsibility for giving students that sense of ownership over their grades and performance. I wish that teachers and school officials would think of directly dealing with their students rather than immediately contacting the parents, if there is a problem. I know that it's possible. Some teachers, deans and principals can do that for the students and the students talk about them with great admiration and respect. Those teachers are not the the "easy" ones. Quite the opposite, actually. But aside from being "hard" and "expecting a lot" these teachers are united in their sincerity and determination to respect their students, independent of their grade.

One last thought (I worry you might feel the way I do when I listen to the end of one of Beethoven's symphonies: will he ever come to an end?). My most inspired impression of parenting and report-cards comes from the song "Zeugnistag" by my favorite song-writer and musician, Reinhard Mey. It's an autobiographical song in which Reinhard describes receiving his report card in school, realizing it was too bad to ever show to his parents, faking his parents' signatures on it, being found out by the principal, being called to the office together with his parents (who are expected to punish Reinhard) and the parents just telling the principal that these are, indeed, their signatures. Mey ends with this line addressing his child and all other children:

Ich weiss nur eins, ich wuensche allen Kindern dieser Welt (und nicht zuletzt auch Dir, mein Kind, Eltern, die aus diesem Holz geschnitten sind.

[I only know this one thing, I wish that all children of this world, and you too, my child, have parents who are cut from that same kind of wood.}