When I was in middle school, after lunch every day all of the students were sent outside. We didn't have a playground and it wasn't recces, exactly, but everyone had to go outside to get some fresh air and exercise for about 20 minutes. There was a big field and some tennis courts and some places to play, but mostly we just wandered around with nothing to do.
And when boys have nothing to do they start to look for trouble.
My friends and I decided that, since all of the teachers wanted us to stay out of the school, it would be a great idea to try to sneak into the school without getting caught.
Who tries to sneak into the school??
Preteen boys with nothing better to do.
So a big group of us figured out which doors were unlocked, and we would sneak into the building, one at a time, and we would run as fast as we could down the halls and the teachers would see us and yell, "You kids get outta here!" but they never caught us.
Eventually they got smart and started locking all of the school doors, but we were even more clever because we took a tiny little pebble and stuck it in the door frame so that the door looked like it was closed but it really wasn't.
Then we could sneak into the school again!
So about nine of us slipped into the school, and we ran and ran and ran down the halls, and we passed the teachers and they yelled at us but they never caught us! Our goal was always to get past the cafeteria, up the stairs, down the hall and to the far end of the school without getting caught. And one time we made it!
But another time we barely made it into the school before one of the teachers saw us. So we all turned around and ran out of the school and hid behind some bushes. We all made it except Jesse. He was caught.
"You're coming with me," said the grumpy vice principal who had had many of his 20 minutes of after-lunch silence ruined by the naughty boys that kept running through the halls.
"It wasn't just me!" Jesse protested. "What about Jason? And Ryan and Jack and Jeremy? They're all hiding behind those bushes right over there!"
I couldn't believe it. He ratted us out!
And the vice principal looked right at us. He squinted at the bushes and I thought for sure he saw us all crouched down, but he just turned away and said, "I don't believe you. Let's go."
And we were all safe!
Once I realized that we really could have gotten into big trouble, it didn't seem like much fun to sneak into the school. So we didn't sneak into the school anymore, and Jesse wasn't very happy with us because he did get in trouble even when the rest of us didn't.
(I'm sure there is a really great story that goes with this picture. It's the only one I could find of middle school-ish aged Jason.)
*****
When I was in middle school, I didn't try very hard to do good in my classes. I didn't struggle to learn at all, so I didn't have to work very hard to get good grades. But I also didn't care very much about homework, or studying for tests, or trying very hard at all. Sometimes I turned in my homework, sometimes I didn't, and I didn't think it really mattered.
One day I got the mail out of the mailbox and I saw a letter from the school with my name on it. It was my progress report. Back in those days there wasn't as much communication between the school and home as there is now. There wasn't any email or Blackboard or Google Classroom or Dropbox, or all of the other ways that teachers and parents and students communicate now. If there was something that needed to be said, there was a phone call, a note sent home from the teacher, or a letter in the mail. Progress reports always came home in the mail.
I wondered how I was doing in my classes, so I opened up my progress report and saw a bunch of A's and B's and one great big D in math class.
D!!! I did not know I was doing that bad!
But I did know that my parents would not be happy if they saw that D, so I folded up the progress report, and I put it in my pocket, and then I went into my bedroom and stuck it in my desk and covered it up with a bunch of baseball cards and books.
And I didn't mention it to anyone.
My sisters' progress reports all came home soon, and my parents asked me if I had seen mine, and I said, "Nope!"
And a few more days went by and they asked again and I said, "Nope!"
And a few more days went by and they sat me down and said, "Jason, we know your progress report has been delivered to our house and we know you have it. Why don't you want to show it to us?"
And I explained that I got a bad grade and I didn't know why. But I got the progress report out of my bedroom and we looked at it together and even went to the school to talk to my math teacher, Mrs. DeNadio. She was a mean lady with big frizzy hair and a lot of makeup, kind of like Cruella DeVille. She said that I hadn't been doing my classwork or my homework, which was mostly true, but I knew that there were some assignments that I had turned in that she hadn't given me credit for. So we looked in my desk and in her basket and updated all of the assignments that I done, and by the end of the year my grade was up to a B.
After that I started trying harder in my classes, and I learned that I couldn't make my mistakes disappear by trying to hide them. I also learned that my parents loved me, and that they would support me while I tried to fix my mistakes. And I never got a D in a class again!
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