Inadequate

It's Saturday morning and I'm sitting in an empty lecture hall that I once sat in for undergraduate history classes at ECU. I'm here because my daughter, Rylee, is taking the ACT as a part of the Duke TIP program for AIG students. When I took Rylee to the room, I saw a few other 7th graders there for the same reason. Most of them looked terrified at the thought of the four-hour test that was about to take place. I had tried to take some time to coach Rylee on what the test looked like and even had some help from a couple of our teachers that taught our ACT prep classes. I know that I couldn't teach her all of the skills needed to score well in just a few weeks, but I could make her feel a little more comfortable about it.

When I walked out, I saw the high school-aged students walking in to take their seats in the same room. I chuckled to myself. Can you imagine the thoughts that they had when they walked in and saw several 12-year-olds sitting in the room? Here they are, probably taking the test for at least the second time, to improve a score and try to get into their college of choice. They walk into the room and see young kids that they probably assume to be brilliant minds going into college way younger than them. Both the 12-year-olds and the high schoolers only have their own frame of reference to consider and both enter the room feeling inadequate.

Last week I watched a video of a fight that began in the gym before school. What started as a play-fight led to one of the boys getting the best of another. That boy let his feelings of inadequacy get the best of him and it turned into a real fight. Others saw and joined in. It's an all too common story. Students engage in bad behaviors because they feel inadequate in class or fear looking inadequate to their peers. It's a powerful feeling that causes some to withdraw and others to lash out and in some way, we have all been there. Even as I sat in my first doctorate classes, I wondered for a moment if I was as smart as everyone else, or if my writing was up to par. The feeling of self-doubt can be tough to get over, but if you do, something amazing can happen.

Later this week I was about to suspend a young lady that was escalating a confrontation through a group chat. (Unfortunately, policing messages has become a school responsibility.) As we spoke, I understood that her actions stemmed from her own self-doubt and I had an idea. I offered her a chance to admit her transgressions back in the same group message over a traditional disciplinary action. While it had been easy for her to lash out publicly, it was painful for her to admit her wrongdoings in the same group. But when she did, she instantly looked different. It was over and she moved on and so did the conflict among the group.

Too often our fears of inadequacy paralyze our best intentions. We fear standing out in our group or to be different from the norm. We fear failure so we marginalize ourselves. But if we want better students and more student leaders, then we all have to be examples of stepping away from that and we have to tell that story to them. Whenever we feel inadequate, we assume that we are the only ones in the world that feel that way, but we're not. We never are. Dealing with that feeling is empowering and just like everything else that we do, it's something that can be taught. Don't be afraid...go teach it.