Academic triage.

I am annoyed by people who become so fixated on something, they cannot think of anything else. Single-mindedness that prevents any sort of divided attention... I don't get it.

Maybe it's because I live in a state of continuous divided attention. I must say, I spend so much time in Quadrant I, I'm embarrassed to admit it. I know I need to be striving for Quadrant II, but when I have uninterrupted time, I'm so exhausted, I slip right into braindead, wasteful Quadrant IV. Before I become fixated on Covey's time management four-quadrant model... what I really wanted to talk about was what I spend my day obsessing about.

High school used to be viewed as a sorting mechanism (it still is to many of the old guard - which, of course, has nothing to do with age.) The old guard want us (APs) to sit at our desks and decide who is worth keeping and who needs to go. If a student is floundering, many of the old guard dig in their heels and refuse to find ways to help the student find success. I often see "profiling" in these God-like decisions... the tan-skinned, straight-haired kids get the most brutal treatment, followed by the kids with dirty clothes and greasy hair.

Although many teachers will not exert any effort in finding ways to make school work for the "unworthy," it's what I spend my day obsessing about. Sometimes when I have a student in my office, my mind is on another kid and how on earth we are going to make things work for him or her. I have to snap out of that and live in the moment, giving the student in front of me my undivided attention, but academic triage is what I obsess about.

I think I spent an entire hour thinking about one kid. Tony is a smart enough kid, but he will explode from time to time. He has always been respectful toward me, but he has lashed out at other staff members and I will not tolerate that from him. He went "hands on" with a male teacher who asked him to stay behind so he could talk to him about using foul language in class - a teacher who doesn't "ride kids hard," so I don't suspect he was too hard on the kid. Tony got mad that the teacher would stop to correct his behavior, so he pushed the teacher out of the way, yelled a few expletives, and left.

Tony and I have an understanding. Disrespecting teachers equals out of school suspension. I texted Tony, telling him to come to my office. He complied. He owned his behavior, and he headed home.

So where does academic triage come in? I spent the hour thinking about what I will do with this kid when he comes back to school on Monday. He has missed so much school between his numerous stints of OSS and his regular truancy. One thing I know for sure: TRADITIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DOES NOT WORK FOR THIS KID. So... now what? Hence the hour. I don't know what to do. I think it will take a few more hours (at least) to think of a plan, but one thing is for sure, I'm not going to set him up for failure by sending him right back to doing what he was doing before... stay tuned...