We Must Love One Another or Die

We’re out of chances.

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Here’s something teachers know:

If you want to motivate a slacker, sometimes you have to scare them. You have to tell them they’re failing. You have to show them your grade book, with all the absences and zeroes. You have to lay out the consequences in crystal clear terms they can understand.

You have to tell them, “It’s too late.”

Believe it or not, this is what gets the slackers going. Tell them there’s nothing they can do. Tell them they’ve failed. Not because you’re trying to trick them. Not because you’re angry. Not because you want to. You do it because it’s true. They have failed. They’ve used up all of their chances. That’s the moment they start doing the work.

It’s a tactic of last resort.

It works.

No, not always. It’s not a move you open with. It’s not something you use on someone who’s just struggling. It’s what we do when we run out of all other options. We do it after six, eight, or ten weeks of explaining the assignments and giving deadline extensions.

If you know anything about me, then you probably know I’m a generous teacher. But when a student has failed, I don’t lie to them. I don’t waste their time with false hope. I tell them the truth. I tell them it’s…