After more than 30 years in education, I’ve been asked every question you can imagine. “What’s the secret to a high SAT score?” “How do you motivate an unmotivated child?” I’ve answered them in books, on stages, and in thousands of one-on-one sessions. I’ve shared strategies and techniques that have helped students achieve incredible success.
But the single most important lesson I ever learned didn’t come from a professional development seminar or an educational textbook. It came from a student, early in my teaching career, who I’ll call David. And he taught me everything by saying almost nothing at all.
David was a ghost in my tenth-grade English class. He was a bright kid—I could tell from the rare, insightful comments he’d make when he thought no one was listening. But his grades were in freefall. He never turned in homework, failed every quiz, and stared at the back wall with a blank expression that I, as a young and ambitious teacher, mistook for defiance.
I tried everything in my teacher’s toolkit. I tried encouragement, offering him extra help after class. I tried warnings, showing him the mathematical impossibility of passing if he didn’t start trying. I called his parents, who sounded just as frustrated as I was. Nothing worked. David remained a polite, quiet, and completely unreachable wall. I was determined to “fix” him, to make him fit the mold of a successful student, but every one of my efforts failed.
One afternoon, completely out of ideas, I asked him to stay after class. I had a lecture prepared, but when I looked at him sitting silently at his desk, the prepared words felt hollow. I scrapped the speech.
I pulled up a chair, and instead of asking, “Why aren’t you doing the work?” I asked something different. “David,” I said quietly, “forget the grades for a minute. Are you okay?”
For the first time all year, he made eye contact. His quiet facade crumbled, and his eyes welled up. He told me that his father had lost his job months earlier and the stress at home was unbearable. He was up at night listening to his parents argue, and he was working a part-time job after school that he hadn’t told anyone about to help with the bills. He wasn’t bored or lazy; he was exhausted. He was carrying a weight that would have crushed most adults, let alone a 15-year-old.
In that moment, I felt a profound sense of shame. I had been so focused on the symptoms—the failing grades, the missed homework—that I never once thought to investigate the cause. I saw a failing student, but I had failed to see the struggling child.
That was the lesson. It’s the lesson that has shaped my entire career and has become the bedrock philosophy of Grade Success: Before you can ever teach the subject, you must first see the student.
We immediately changed our approach. I worked with David to create a manageable schedule. We connected him with the school counselor. I stopped hounding him about every missing assignment and instead focused on celebrating small victories. His grades didn’t magically jump to an ‘A’ overnight, but something more important happened. He started participating again. The light came back into his eyes. He wasn’t a ghost anymore.
Today, when a parent calls us about a child’s falling grades, I think of David. The ‘D’ in math or the ‘F’ on a history report is just a piece of data. It’s a signal fire. Our job isn’t just to put out the fire, but to understand what started it. Is it a gap in knowledge? Yes, often. But is it also anxiety? A lack of confidence? A struggle at home?
This is why we call our services “personalized.” We start by trying to understand the whole child. Because a student who feels seen, understood, and supported is a student who is ready to learn.
The most important lesson David taught me is that we are not just in the business of education. We are in the business of people. And that has made all the difference.
