Every Kid Wants to Do the Right Thing

Every Kid Wants to Do the Right Thing

November 15, 2024

I was in my second year of teaching. I had been called to a parent-student meeting.

Elizabeth English (now the head of the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, California) had called us in.

I sat down next to my six colleagues, sort of crammed into Elizabeth’s Director of the High School’s office.

Katy was there, her mom, her dad, and all her teachers.

11 of us.

She must have felt pretty uncomfortable, but it was justified.

Her behavior and lack of academic effort warranted it.

I had no idea how impactful the next eight minutes were going to be on my teaching career.

I was a new teacher and I was surrounded by colleagues decades ahead of me in the craft of teaching.

Elizabeth brought the meeting to order, welcomed everyone, and expressed that the point of this meeting was to help Katy.

Then her father began.

He spent the next five minutes describing how irresponsible and undisciplined his daughter was.

How embarrassed he was that his daughter had taken up so much of our time.

He went on and on.

He shared how he and Katy's mother had done everything they could at home to “support” her—kept her from going out with her friends, took away her phone and her computer, threatened that if she didn’t get her grades up she was going to have to stop playing sports after school. But it didn’t matter because his daughter didn't want to live up to her potential.

The mother sat stone-faced looking downward, fiddling gently with her purse.

Katy shifted in her seat pulling her energy away from her father.

He looked isolated all of a sudden

My colleagues around the table sat and waited.

I was thinking, wow, what’s Elizabeth going to say, now?

Elizabeth waited pleasantly for the father to finish.

Then she smiled ever so slightly, looked straight into his eyes, and said calmly, “Mr. Roberts, I categorically disagree with everything you just said about your daughter. I believe in my heart that every kid wants to do the right thing, and when they are not, it is our responsibility to figure out how to help them. That's what I believe to be true about Katy.”

I wish I could go back and see the expression on my face at that moment.

I probably looked like a little kid—wide-eyed and sort of amazed.

It was not at all what I had expected.

It certainly was not what Mr. Roberts had expected either.

He sat in stunned silence. And he didn’t say another word.

Oddly, I don’t remember much about the rest of the meeting but undoubtedly we set up a cohesive plan to help Katy be the best version of herself.

I was too in awe of the bold truthfulness of Elizabeth.

What she said resonated so deeply with me.

I remember how moved and empowered I felt about the work that I was doing as a teacher.

“Every kid wants to do the right thing.”

This became the foundational piece of my educational philosophy from that day forward.

Eight words that have helped me countless times over the years as I watched students misbehave, not turn in their work, be disrespectful, and choose the wrong thing.

“Every kid, no matter how they behave, wants to do the right thing.”

Elizabeth had put words to my deep belief in the goodness of each of us—and especially in children.

And yes, high school-aged kids are still children—working their way through life, trying to figure out how to behave, how to conform, and how to preserve the precious parts of who they are as individuals.

For some kids, the road is bumpier than others. Home life, parents, divorce, and socio-economic realities all play a key role in how kids behave.

Absolutely.

But all kids want to do the right thing, and when they don’t, we are the ones who have the opportunity to help them peel back the layers of why they are behaving the way they are so their truest nature can emerge.

And with this belief comes the responsibility to establish proper boundaries, structures, actions, and accountability that all kids need as they emerge into their adult selves.

I saw it in Katy.

What an honor.

What a responsibility too.

See you next week.