Pursuing Magnetic Levitation #83

So, with two more weeks down, I’m of two minds.

1. The seniors who are just truly out of bounds with their behavior, I really do think that they are in contexts/situations where their parents hoped against hope they’d be physically safe and walk away with a high school diploma. If they struggle after this, as many do, it won’t be good, but they could have not finished high school in a different environment, and that’s definitely something. But they really are basically children (which is true, but I mean compared to a lot of marticulating seniors, even some of their classmates).

2. However, I remain concerned about the distractible ones who see their friends goofing off and even if they never sink to their level, are less incentivized to “run through the tape.” These kids could go one way or the other next year, and have plenty of potential. So it’s just a question mark. And it’s best for my mental health if I don’t worry about it too much, but I have seen so many people fall right to pieces when left to their own devices, people I’m related to or know personally. And I’m not just talking about college. Fine, trade school, or a job, but bosses are even less forgiving that professors about task completion.

3. However, I am hopeful for the juniors I’ve been working with and think they’ll be in a much better place a year from now. We shall see.

4. What can be done about those who put in considerable effort to not do work? I don’t mean just refusing to engage, but going out of their way to not do work, like being assigned to write a paragraph to start an essay today, and instead used GPT to spit out an entire page, then re-typed that whole page. All of which was a lot more work than just writing a short paragraph. It’s not gonna go well next year and I feel like I’m sending her off a cliff.