Share your "bad student gone good" success story

[ckay87]

PLEASE?

Will someone please tell me that a bad student is not a bad student forever...that there IS a way out. That there is hope and help to be had. Oh and share your miracle cures while you're at it too.



DS is 13 and ... purely by the grace of God ... is going to 8th grade next year.

 

[GoofyDad869]

Me. In high school, I did very bad in algebra and calculus. I just goofed off in class all the time, never did any homework, the tests & quizzes were bad. It wasn't that I didn't 'get it' when I cracked the book, I just never put forth the effort. I passed those classes by the skin of my teeth (D's). When I got into college (went immediately after high school), and took calculus, I really had to learn it ALL over again. There was so much pre-requisite stuff that I just never learned in the first place that it was painful. I didn't do great - made low B's/high C's in all my mathematics courses. Physics/statics was a similar experience, so much of that is based on calculus / geometry (I did pretty well in HS geometry/trig - B's & C's).

Secrets of the turn-around? I just realized one day that it was "Me" who had to do this. I'd probably be diagnosed A.D.D. in this day and age.

I graduated from college, Bach. of Arch. with a 3.1 GPA. I am an owner of an architectural firm (yeah, you kinda need math for that).

 

[poohbears5]

My ds just graduated !! He was a pain in my *** till his senior year I think he finally matured and got it. He was on the Honor roll every marking period his senior year before that every year I was sure he was going to fail even did summer school 9th grade for not doing homework.

 

[ziggystardust]

My story is about my friend from HS. We went to catholic school and somehow managed to be in EVERY SINGLE class together freshman year (our last names started with the same few letters) which also meant she sat in front of me. We became friends eventually and started hanging out non-stop. She would never do homework, always failed her tests and would be passing notes around and goofing off during class. My grades suffered b/c I was hanging out with her so much and following her bad habits. I knew she was naturally smart b/c when we took standardized tests she always did well but she never made the effort with anything else. The summer going into sophomore year something clicked with her. She started really making the effort and made a complete turnaround. She graduated HS and college with honors, and is now in a top rated dental school.

So it does happen...

 

[challada]

As an educator, I have many many such stories...but I don't know if you mean "bad" as in bad grades or bad behavior.

For grades: I had a student who did not do well in school but skated by her classes. When she graduated HS, she went on to college, walked on the basketball team and was a star. She came back when in college and we tested her for a learning disability and sure enough, she probably had one all along.

For behavior: I had an elementary student who was a screamer/biter/wild child. She had a very rough background before I got her. She spent most of her days in the office at school. Since she was now living w/a single dad, she often came to school unkempt, so we had a deal where she would come to me in the morning before school and we would wash her up, fix her beautiful blonde hair and I would feed her (we had no hot breakfast program in the district). Brushing hair seemed to calm her and worked at getting her mornings off to a better start. Anyway, years later, I ran into her as a teenager...she was a beautiful young lady, well kept and now with glasses, who was hangiong out with a nice bunch of other teens. This was a kid I worried would be jailed or dead by 16, so it was great to see a "normal" teen.

 

[RadioNate]

Me. I had mostly C and D's in Jr High. Those turned into D's and F's in High School. I went to summer school in order to make the requirements. My HS average was a low C. A's in choir and B's in other 'easy' classes saved me.

My first semester in college I got straight A's. I graduated undergrad with a 3.6 and grad school with a 3.8.

Sometimes it just takes something to click.

 

[barkley]

have a dear friend whose parents struggled with him over school all his life. it was esp. hard for them because his dad was an awsome school counselor whose greatest success was in turning kids around and motivating them to do their best. they looked at weather my friend could'nt or would'nt do the work (would'nt-absolutly no motivation) and tried everything to get him going in the right direction.

it was a continual struggle but he did graduate from highschool (this guy was SO bright-had it not been for the requirement to attend school he could have easily tested out years early and been done with it-he just had no interest in "being told" how/what to learn).

fast forward to his mid 20's. he and i were dating and he expressed his frustration with not being able to progress beyond the entry level jobs he had held since high school graduation. i advised him that without further education or training it was unlikely he would ever find much that interested or challenged him. he knew he was'nt cut out for the formal classroom so we looked at alternative options. he had a passion for motercycles and anything mechanical, so we asked everyone that we could find who worked professionaly in the field what learning opportunities there were outside the programs offered at the local college. we found a reputable correspondance school that allowed him to do the "classroom" work by mail at his own pace and then attend the physical campus for a full time (8 hours per day) hands on semester of learning.

i'm happy to say he excelled at the program-he whipped his correspondance work out in less than half the time normaly alloted. he moved in with family for the semester he had to take away from home at the physical campus. it was hard-he had to save like mad to cover his time at school as well as his "down time" once he graduated cuz he had to quit his regular job to go.
but-he found a learning style that worked for him, it opened him up to a successful feeling in learning he'd never experienced before, and as a result he's gone on to take a few classes here and there at the college near where he lives. he is very successful now, he parlayed several years of mechanicing to handling parts orders for the places he worked at, eventualy finding he had a likeing for numbers and recordkeeping. last i heard he was the parts manager for a couple of major car dealerships in nevada.

theres always hope, i think it's just a matter of figuring out where a persons interests lie, and what their individual learning style is. that does'nt mean a student can just give up on going to school in hopes of finding it-there will always be situations not to their likeing that they will have to endure for practical purposes. but in the mean time THEY can work to find what works for them (at some point it has to be laid in their lap, a parent/friend/counselor can only do so much-ultimatly the individual has to take the initiative to seek and discover).

good luck to you.

 

[Cindy B]

My DH was never a school kid. He was always goofing off, getting in trouble, not doing homework, back in high school.

Anyway, he basically went right into work and never really went to college. He he is at 43 going to college for basically the first time. (he took a course or two right out of high school, but still had poor study habits)

Anyway, he now has taken some pretty intensive courses and has a 4.0 average in all his courses! I am so proud of him.

 

[Rafiki Rafiki Rafiki]

For my stepdaughter, it was really a struggle all the way around. When she came to live with us, she was 9 and was failing out of school.

Knowing that she was really actually smart led us to start questioning a lot of things. For starters, we took her to have her hearing checked, and the audiologist diagnosed her as having central auditory processing problems. For those kids, the hearing works fine, but the message gets garbled inbetween the ear and the brain. We adjusted her environment--making sure she was where she could see the teacher and have minimal distractions in the classroom.

Her grades got somewhat better, but school was still a struggle. She was horribly disorganized, and the teachers said she seemed to be a million miles away when all the other kids were working. We eventually (by 6th and 7th grade) turned to Adderall, which she took only on school days. The teachers reported major improvements in both her attitude and her production. During that time, I also worked with her daily to check her assignment notebook and all her folders to help force her to keep organized.

She's now just finished 10th grade, and without much effort to help organize her and with NO medication, she has a 3.5 grade average in honors classes. I couldn't be more proud of what she's done...and I am looking forward to helping her find and apply for scholorships to pay for college so that she can keep all that money we've saved for her for the past 16 years!

 

[mtdevine615]

Don't give up hope, it may take a while but he'll find his way. But I must stress education is the key. My story is about me. i quit high school when I was a sopohmore and then went back to summer school and then quit again in my junior year. This time for good. I joind the Army figuring that I was going to spend 20 years and retire. Well when I was in i soon realized two things: the Army wasn't for me and all I was doing was going to school. So I got out and with the help of my parents who were now thrilled I went to a community college and got my AAS in computer technology. And that was great for a while but I always loved to cook so I went back to school for another AAS degree in culinary arts with the thought of opening my own restaurant. While I was cooking I realized two more things: that I would need some business sense to run a restaurant so I transferred to the Universitiy and eventually got my BS in business and I really wasn't prepared for the long hours. So I left cooking and am now working for a large insurance company and yeah I also found time to go back to school again and I now have my MBA.

It's a long story but bottom line is don't give up on him. If my parents had not given me the options I probably would have stayed in the Army. I guess that would have been fine but not really what I wanted to do. Actually I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

 

[ckay87]

Thank you all for the stories! I wish I had heard some of these earlier in the school year - might have saved me a lot of tears.

To clarify - it's bad grades, not at all bad behavior. And it's failure to complete assignments - not intelligence. He continuously scores in the 98th percentile on standardized tests in the language areas - yet he failed German.

Anyway, most of what I hear is so often discouraging and I really appreciate all of you who took the time to share some hopeful stories. Thank you.

 

[paigevz]

Here you go, the story of Cool (not his real name, but similar "feeling"). Edited when I saw your clarification of grades, not behavior, but the story still goes for both..........

Cool came to me with a long list of misbehaviors. His first grade teachers apologized for sending him to me, but said I was the only one who they thought could handle him in second grade. I had teachers from PK and Kindergarten coming up to ask "Who got Cool this year?" I had teachers from upper grades asking, "Who got that kid, what's his name, the one that......................." whatever followed, it was always something Cool had done.

Cool had refused to work, disrupted lectures, thrown furniture, destroyed books, run away mid-day, ripped down bulletin board displays in the hall, thrown his lunch tray, set off fire alarms, attacked the teacher and other students and so on. Cool failed 1st grade, but his teachers placed him in 2nd because they said he COULD do it, he just wouldn't.

Cool was behind in his studies.........not far behind, but just enough that he recognized it. This is why Cool wasn't doing the work. Cool, I soon found out, was a perfectionist. If it wasn't going to look perfect, he ripped it up. If it wasn't going to get a 100, he threw it away. I began cutting his papers into fourths, and having him do no more than 5 items at a time. Cool then felt he had more of a chance to do well, and if he threw some away, I still had the rest of the assignment.........enough to see if he understood.

Cool disrupted lessons. I had Cool illustrate what I was saying. He loved to draw, so he drew what I talked about. After the lesson, we'd post his drawings as an easy to follow guideline. Cool later said he felt very smart, like he was a teacher, when he did this.

Cool had to have a checklist of behaviors. Cool did NOT know what were acceptable and were unacceptable behaviors. I gave Cool a list of dos and don'ts for common situations. He was required to keep it with him all day in his pocket. He'd put it in his school box at the end of the day. Cool had a table with goals for each subject area listed. Cool got a sticker for each time he met a goal during each subject. Cool started off with days of no stickers at all, then a few here and there. By the end of the year, Cool asked me not to give him his table anymore, as he was getting all stickers anyway and didn't need it now.

Cool was identified as gifted in his second grade year. We had to use a variety of tests, due to his getting frustrated when he began missing questions, and we had to do it over several weeks. We explained to Cool what the tests were for (we don't usually do this, but I felt it was important), Cool later said it had never occurred to him that anyone would think he was smart.

Cool played the clown in class. I got him a study carrel and put it near the door. I always teach with my door open. I enjoy an open door. Because Cool was near the door, other staff members walking by would often stop to correct him, redirect him, point out a mistake. I posted a sign in the lounge to continue, but also to find reasons to praise him and acknowledge when he was on task. Cool later said he never realized so many people cared about whether he was doing his work or not until I put his desk by the door.

We put Cool in our afterschool program so he was out of trouble and got his homework done. We gave Cool's mother a list of counseling places she could take him to, and she got him a bimonthly counseling appointment. His home life improved.

By the end of the year, Cool was working on grade level in most subjects, and above in reading. Cool was able to accept Bs, but mostly got As. Cool was the one child that all the other children said they wanted in their class for the next year. Cool had become a helper to others and exhibited a caring attitude towards anyone in distress.

I was extremely careful with his 3rd grade placement. He had absolutely no trouble whatsoever in 3rd grade. I did not talk to his teacher about his past issues, but did share with her some things that worked well with Cool as he liked to feel helpful and needed. I talked with her about some of the ways Cool had learned to cope when he was feeling bad about himself, and that the counselor was there for him whenever he felt he needed her. Later, when his 3rd grade teacher did find out about his past behaviors, she said he wasn't that child anymore.

Cool is now entering 6th grade. Cool has had NO discipline referrals in the rest of elementary school. Cool continued to improve in school, passed all his state tests, and got commended performance on reading. Cool is known in his trailer park for helping younger children with their homework. Cool wants to be a teacher.

HTH!

 

[bntlyclg89]

Are "comebacks" possible absolutely!!! My best freind in HS spent her freshman and sophmore years doing as little as possible. She would cut classes (to sit in the girls' lav ?!?!), not turn in assignments. During geometry, our teacher even refused to grade her work.

Enter the Tutor. He was supposed to help her with math but I have a feeling that he also helped her with organization and study skills. He basically told her "Look, it's not a question of you being smart enough to do the work. It's a question of you doing the work. If you want to do nothing that's your deal but I won't continue to take your parents' money and I'll go"

That was it. She went from doing nothing to completing assignments, passing tests, not skipping school, went out for track her Senior year and making the honor roll. She was really bummed that her class rank wasn't higher but since it was cumulative, her 2 years of doing nothing bit her.

I am always amazed at her turnaround. So it is possible. HTH.

 

[sajetto]

I'm one of those comback kids. I was terrible in school from 4th-6th grade, then my parents moved and the new school I was in turned me from a C and D student to a straight A student! Moving was the best thing my parents could have done for me

 

[crazelion]

In grade school I was digonsed with a LD was told I never gradution high school let alone college. In grade school i got the help that I need to do good in school. I put in Special education so I get the proper help that I need. I was doing good until got 7th grade. I turn into a thug. I was put in regular class that year was doing badly we talking about D's and F's. I was fighting all the time. I quit doing school work becasue I did not understand it. Amazing enough I pass the 7th grade. 8th grade was same as the 7th more fighting and acting a fool.

The end of the my 8th grade year the school system acconnce will be the first 9th grade class to high school. Talking about person not ready for high school. It turn out be the best thing for me to remove from junior high school. 9th grade grades in improve because I was back in Sp ED class which help out alot. The grades turn to C and D's. I was still actly like a fool fighting. I was running up down the hall way like a crazy person.

Major turn my 10 grade year. I caught the men's basketball coach attention with my lighting speed running up down the hall way. So he talk to girl's basketball to see if place on jv basketball team to keep out trouble. Being put on the basketball team was best thing for me. it kept out trouble. My grades sky rocket. I was making A and B's in most of my class. The only low grade that was a D that was English.

My 11th and 12 grade years was I was honor roll most time. The only kept me off was the low grade in English.

I gradution with a regular Diploma than SP ED Diploma.

I went college in struggle to get my BS Information Systems in End-User support minor network support. I fail English to many times but finally get the degree.

I still can't write to this day.

 

[TerryKitten]

Me... I was in remedial math in Jr High and got C's, D's, and a few F's (except for an A in my Fav class) while I was there. Freshman in HS it was pretty much the same C's, D's and F's. Something clicked in Soph. Year and I started doing better... Graduated HS w/ a 3.0 I did OK in College and got a degree. I know I have a learning disablity and was tested repeatedly for it, but it was so mild that it didn't require extra help. I"m happy w/ C's and B's, and quite happy that I got my college degree.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Well I thought hubby was one of those turnaround stories..but it wasn't as bad as I expected.

In middle school he made A's, B's, C's, and D's (in PE off all things--FIGURES!!!!).

He graduated valedictorian from High School. Lost his scholarship in college. Took him a while to graduate and he managed to do so with a respectable GPA despite his low GPA first year. Graduated with a Masters Degree with honors (I think he had only one B in an exceptionally difficult class with all the rest A's). He completed his master's while working full time and traveling for work.

He's a regular yo yo! But a prime example of what happens when you take inititiative and what happens when you don't. And the former D PE student--completed the Disney half-marathon with me in January.


My mom dropped out of high school, later got her GED. Joined the military. Ended up in a special program about 10-15 years into her career, where the Navy let her go to school for two years (reporting in only once per month in univorm) to get her Associate's degree. After her military career, the woman who once failed home ec b/c she couldn't cook to save her life--ended up in culinary school and excelled. Due to disability she is no longer working in that field, but had her health been 100% she would be kicking some serious butt.

She also sucked at chemistry and math--but can fully understand every chemical reaction that takes place in cooking (and can figure out proportions and all that nonsense to get a recipe do what you need it to do..all without a freaking recipe in writing. She's possessed! LOL!).

My mother as it turns out is also very smart--but she was "written off" in her high school years as a kid without potential and they treated her poorly and scheduled her accordingly. Her SAT verbal puts mine to shame. Her math is not so good. Her verbal was somewhere close to 700 if not more. Freaky!

 

[MrsPete]

As a high school teacher, I'll tell you this: You're going to have to stick to your guns for the next two years. 9th grade tends to be bad, especially for boys. Get him through 9th grade, and you're home-free. My suggestions:

Never allow any excuses. None.

Read the book Taming the Homework Hassel by John Rosemond. It's not just about homework; it's about success in school in general. One whole chapter details a checklist system, which I used numerous times with 9th graders; when the parents did their end, it worked wonders. I'd suggest that you start the checklist system on Day 1 of school BEFORE you have time for problems to develop. You say that his problem is largely failing to turn in work; this is very common. I promise you, the checklist thing will work if you and the teacher work together.