The Grade Is Information.
What Comes Next Is Education.

Do Athletes Train Hard or Easy?

I ask students: Do serious athletes train hard or easy? They usually say hard. Then: Do weightlifters lift heavy weights or feathers? Heavy weights, right? Do runners train by running feet or miles? Miles. No brainer.

The point is simple: Growth requires challenge.

I see it as a critical part of my job to challenge every student. That means students with IEPs, students with 504s, general education students, honors students, gifted students, struggling students — everybody. The level and type of challenge may be different, but there needs to be challenge. If a student spends an entire year in my classroom without ever feeling stretched, then I probably haven't done my job as well as I could have.

Unfortunately, students and parents are not always comfortable with that. At least once a year I hear some version of: But my child has always gotten straight A’s. Or: They've never struggled before; why do they have a problem in your class? Who says there is a problem? And my reaction is increasingly: Okay. Maybe now they are.

“They’ve Never Struggled Before”

Not every student responds to challenge on the same timeline. Many of the standards I teach are literally written in terms of what students should know by the end of middle school. To me, that acknowledges something important: These kids are works in progress. Sometimes they are not there yet. That can be very difficult to tell the parent of a kid who has always earned straight A’s.

But one advantage of having taught for a long time is that I can say with considerably more confidence than I could early in my career: Yes, I am confident that your student is currently performing at a B level. Or: Yes, right now this looks like C-level understanding. Or: Yes, your student failed that test. The grade isn't a punishment. It is a signal. The teaching begins when we help a student interpret it and decide what to do next.

Earlier in my career, though, I was much better at saying, They're not there yet, than I was at answering the obvious follow-up question: Okay. So what do we do about it? That has changed.

“Not Yet” Needs a Next Step

I am extremely fortunate. I work in a very good school district. I have what I would consider a dream job. Even on difficult days, I have enough support, stability, resources, and experience that I have been able to spend a lot of time digging into my own practice.

What do I actually want students to do? What does effective studying look like? What should happen when a student is working hard but not succeeding? What happens when the grade doesn't match the effort? What happens when the student wants an A but is behaving like a C student? What happens when a parent wants an A more than the student does?

Over time, I have developed much better answers. I've organized a lot of them into an effective study habits document that I share with parents before the school year and again at Back to School Night. And yet, inevitably, sometime three-quarters of the way through the year, a parent will approach me and say: What's going on?

So I send the document again. Then we talk about what the student is currently doing, what they aren't doing, what they could add, what they could change, whether they are practicing, checking their work, asking questions, and using the resources provided. The best parents sometimes say: You already shared this with me, didn't you? Yes. Yes, I did.

No secrets. No excuses. I told you so. I do not actually say: I told you so. But sometimes I will tell them: I'm thinking it.

Struggling Is Not Automatically Bad

All of this can sound harsh if it is taken out of context. But we're all supposedly after the same thing: Student growth. Straight A’s are wonderful. But straight A’s can also mean that a student is never being meaningfully challenged. If a student is struggling, part of me says: Good. Now we have somewhere to grow.

Again, I understand why parents don't necessarily enjoy hearing that. My wife certainly didn't enjoy hearing it when I said essentially the same thing about our own daughter. It was very easy for Teacher Me to say: She's not there yet. It was much harder when another teacher's gradebook was telling me the same thing about my kid. That experience forced me to examine what I actually mean when I talk about failure.

Be Honest About Effort

I also try to be honest about effort. Not cruel. Not judgmental. Just honest. Sometimes I tell a student: I've taught a lot of students who put in about the same amount of effort you're putting in right now. Most of them tend to earn around the grade you're currently earning.

That is useful information. I can follow it with: I'm not mad at you. I'm not judging you. I think you're capable of doing better. I'm here to help. But I don't think it serves anyone to pretend that the current process is working when the evidence says otherwise.

Some students genuinely need to work more—or work differently—than other students. That is not fair. It is also reality. No one wants to be the kid who needs the extra work. I understand that. But if you want a particular result, you have to be willing to do what that result requires.

The Importance of “Yet”

One word I use constantly is: Yet. This is hardly an original idea. Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset helped popularize the “power of yet”: treating current performance as a point on a learning curve rather than a permanent verdict.

You can't do it yet. You don't understand it yet. You haven't figured out how to study for this class yet. You aren't earning the grade you want yet. Yet matters because it keeps a current result from turning into an identity. A student who earns a 68 is not a 68 student. They earned a 68. That's information about a particular moment.

There is almost always time to improve. These are middle schoolers. They have an enormous amount of educational life ahead of them. No one is a finished product at 12 years old. Hell, adults aren't finished products. Professionals aren't finished products. I'm fifteen years into teaching and still regularly realize: Oh. I've been thinking about that wrong. Why would I expect a seventh grader to have everything figured out?

You’re the Professional. Act Like It.

One lesson I've learned over the years is that teachers need to speak with some conviction. You are a professional. You are the person who has seen hundreds or thousands of students. You are allowed to know things. That does not mean you are always right. It does mean you shouldn't abandon your professional judgment because a parent is upset that their child got a B.

Sometimes you have to stand your ground. Nobody wants to piss off a parent. But sometimes a parent is going to be pissed off regardless. Eventually you have to decide what you are willing to live with. Do you want to be the teacher who is afraid to give a low grade? Do you want to pass everyone along because confrontation is uncomfortable? Do you want to deny kids an opportunity to rise to a challenge?

Some of the best praise I've received from students and parents is: Your class was hard. Followed by: But I was really proud of what I did. That's the goal.

Middle School Kids Are Still Becoming People

If you teach middle school, sometimes you also need to reassure parents that nothing is necessarily wrong. A student struggling does not automatically indicate a learning disability. It does not necessarily mean the teacher is doing something wrong. It does not necessarily mean the parent failed.

Sometimes middle schoolers simply don't understand what effective effort actually looks like. Sometimes their priorities are misaligned. Sometimes they genuinely don't care as much about grades as their parents do. They're figuring out who they are, where they fit, what they're good at, what they care about, what they don't care about, and how much effort they're willing to invest in things adults tell them matter.

And I don't believe adults should care infinitely more about a kid's grade than the kid does. I am not going to beat up a child who doesn't care. At some point, they need to meet us halfway. Actually, I prefer at least 51%. It's their life. That 51% is a practical target, not permission for adults to disappear. A child’s low motivation may change the support we provide, but it does not eliminate our responsibility to keep a path open.

Some Kids Just Need More Time

I have watched difficult students completely turn themselves around, sometimes as early as eighth grade. Something clicks. They grow up a little. They begin to want more for themselves. They start giving the required effort. Sometimes a seventh grader's biggest academic intervention is aging.

You can occasionally see this physically. Some seventh graders still look like babies. And sometimes they act like babies. That's not an insult. They're twelve. They may simply not be mature enough yet to flourish in the way adults want them to. But most of them get there eventually.

Teach Parents How Your Class Actually Works

Another common thing parents tell me is: I can't help them because I don't know science. Or: I don't really understand how your class works. Fine. You don't necessarily need to know the science.

Ask to see the notebook. Flip through it. Does it look organized? Complete? Cared for? Are diagrams finished? Are notes there? Are assignments done? If the notebook looks like absolute shit, that may tell you something. Crap in, crap out.

I also show parents how the digital side of my classroom works. I post nearly everything: documents, slides, answer keys, extra practice, photos, videos, and approximately nine million YouTube links. You don't need to know seventh-grade life science to ask: Show me what your teacher posted. Show me your notebook. Show me how you're studying. That's enough to get started.

How Parents Can Approach a Teacher About a Struggling Student

Whether the news is good or bad, you want your child's teacher to be honest with you. If your student is struggling and you actually want to help them, the worst opening move is often: Why did you give my kid this grade? Especially if the conversation immediately becomes accusatory.

Teachers are people. If you attack someone, they may get defensive. Some will shut down. Some will say whatever is necessary to end the conversation. And even if they remain completely professional, you may have just made collaboration harder than it needed to be. So: Be nice. Be curious. Be part of the solution.

Ask: What are you seeing? What does my child seem to understand? Where are they struggling? What should they be doing differently? What can we reinforce at home? Blaming almost never fixes anything. Usually multiple people and multiple decisions contributed to whatever situation you're now trying to solve.

A Trade Secret: Your Kid Isn’t Perfect

I'm going to give away a major teacher trade secret: YOUR CHILD ISN'T PERFECT. Mine aren't either. Most students are not straight-A students. Statistically, most people are somewhere around average. That's basically what average means.

We have developed a strange educational culture in which a B can sometimes feel like a crisis. A B is a good grade. If your kid has a B and wants an A, great. Help them figure out how to work toward the A. But don't immediately treat the B as evidence of institutional failure.

Likewise, if nearly every student in a class has an A or a B, I at least start wondering about academic rigor. Not always. But sometimes. The most important question is not: What letter did my kid earn? It is: What can my kid actually do, and what can't they do yet? Then help them grow.

Middle School Is a Pretty Safe Place to Fail

Eventually, everybody runs into a class that is difficult for them. I'd rather a kid encounter that experience in middle school than for the first time when the stakes are much higher. Because guess what? Seventh-grade GPA does not follow you around for life.

They're going to forget a shocking amount of what we teach them. High school courses contain plenty of spiraling and reteaching. A kid can bomb an assessment, a marking period, maybe even much of seventh grade, and still become an extremely successful human being. Crazier things have happened. That doesn't mean we stop caring. It means we keep the stakes in perspective.

Tutoring My Own Kid

We worked hard. A lot. It required an enormous amount of patience from me. It also required my daughter to accept the horrifying possibility that her parents occasionally know what they're talking about. I don't know everything. But I know a lot about teaching. And I've taught a lot of kids who remind me of her.

She gradually started bringing home better grades. Then she started bringing home A’s. And that surprised me a little, because I had been prepared to accept: Maybe she simply isn't an A student right now.

My daughter was living between two philosophies. On one side: a demanding mother who expected A’s. On the other: a father who was willing to work like hell with her but was also prepared to say: A B may accurately reflect where you are right now. In the end, my wife may have challenged my thinking in an important way.

Maybe “Not Yet” Wasn’t the Entire Answer

The experience reinforced a lot of my beliefs about preparation, studying, practice, checking work, effort, repetition, and learning. But it also challenged something. I had been very comfortable saying: Some B students just aren't A students yet.

And maybe that's true. But my daughter's experience made me wonder: How many B students aren't actually not there yet? How many are simply not preparing properly? Are all B students capable of becoming A students if they prepare correctly? Probably not. There are too many variables for that to be universally true. But I became less certain than I used to be. And that uncertainty is useful.

The Downside of Expertise — Again

I've seen this situation hundreds of times. Student struggles. Parent is upset. Teacher explains that development is uneven. Student grows. Everyone survives. Experience reinforced that pattern enough times that I became confident in it. Then my own daughter complicated it.

Maybe the issue is cognitive development. Maybe it's a learning disability. Maybe it's motivation. Maybe it's maturity. Maybe it's preparation. Maybe it's study habits. Maybe it's some combination. That's the rub. If we could always put our finger on the exact reason why a student was struggling, these situations wouldn't be difficult.

Sometimes: You're not there yet, is correct. Sometimes: You're capable of more, but you need to work differently, is correct. Sometimes both are correct. The job is figuring out which one you're dealing with.

“Check Your Work” Is Actually a Skill

So we began checking her homework together, even after she told me she had already checked it. I started explicitly teaching her what I wanted her to do. Not: Look at the answer key. Actually: compare your answer, mark whether it is correct, identify where you went wrong, correct it, make sure you understand why the correction works, and ask for help if you still don't understand.

And my daughter also learned another useful lesson: You better actually check it because Dad is checking it afterward anyway. This helped. And then it got me thinking: I bet AI can help me teach this better too. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that it can.

Extra Practice Is Not a Punishment

The next thing we did was extra practice. I tell students constantly: You are never going to hurt yourself by doing appropriate extra practice. If you're a B student who desperately wants to become an A student, you may need to do something extra. Some students need that. Some don't.

No one wants to be the kid who needs more practice. But eventually the question becomes: How badly do you want the result? I've had students whose notebooks are almost absurd. Extra problems everywhere. Rewritten notes. Extra diagrams. Practice after practice after practice.

They want the A badly enough that they're willing to do the extra work required to get there. Other students make no changes. At some point they have effectively decided: I'm okay being a B student. That's okay too. It's their choice. I was almost willing to make that choice for my daughter. Then we tried the extra work.

We Did the Hard Problems Too

My daughter's homework did not always require students to complete every problem. From what I could tell, they often skipped some of the hardest problems and focused largely on the more accessible practice. There was some test-prep-style work, but less of the deeper application.

Regardless of how I feel about that instructional choice, my daughter needed more. So we did the harder problems too. She often got them wrong. Good. Then we worked on them. We checked them. We corrected them. They became another learning opportunity. A harder learning opportunity. My general philosophy is: Practice really hard so the assessment feels easier.

AI Made Extra Practice Much Easier

This is where AI became legitimately awesome.

The important boundary: AI made the practice easier to create; I still had to judge whether the explanation was correct, the difficulty was appropriate, and my daughter actually understood it. Research on structured intelligent tutoring systems is promising, but those systems are not identical to an open-ended chatbot.^[12][13]

ChatGPT has a feature I can use from my phone. I can take a picture of her math work and ask it to check the work, identify mistakes, explain the mistakes, create targeted practice, recreate the same style of problem using different numbers, or build an entirely new practice set. I used to do all of that myself. And it was incredibly time-consuming.

She would finish a set of problems and then sit there while I tried to write new ones. Now I could snap a picture and say: Give me five more problems just like numbers 4, 7, and 9, but use different values. Done. While she worked on those, I could go do something else around the house. That dramatically increased the amount of useful practice we could accomplish without turning math tutoring into my second full-time job.

Rebuilding the Practice Test

We eventually started doing this with assessment preparation too. My daughter would bring home a review or practice test. We would complete it, check it, correct mistakes, identify weaknesses, ask ChatGPT to create another version using the same skills and similar problem types, do the new practice test, and check that one too.

Sometimes I asked for a near-clone with different numbers. Other times I asked: She keeps missing this particular kind of problem. Give me targeted practice that builds up to it. As she improved, we gradually reduced the workload. Some units went well. Fine. We didn't need as much extra practice. Other units were train wrecks. Okay. Those required more.

That's individualized instruction.

You Don’t Have to Be a Teacher to Do This

Obviously, I have an advantage. I know how to diagnose mistakes. I understand how to scaffold a skill. I know when something is too difficult or too easy. But the exciting thing about AI is that a parent who is terrible at math can still ask for help.

Take a picture of what your kid brought home. Ask: Can you check this? Then: What does she seem to be struggling with? Then: Explain this to me so I can help her. Then: Give her three easier problems that build toward this skill. Then: Now give her a few at the same difficulty. Then: This is too easy. Make it harder. You don't need to know the correct educational terminology. Just have a conversation.

AI Doesn’t Get Annoyed

This may be one of my favorite parts.

You can say: I still don't understand. And AI will explain it again. You can say: That explanation didn't help. It will try another one. Make it simpler. Okay. Give me a harder example. Okay. Give me another one. Okay. Again. Okay.

Kids often don't ask enough questions because they don't want to look stupid. Or annoying. Or needy. Or like the only person in the room who doesn't understand. AI does not care. It does not get tired of you. It does not roll its eyes. It does not wonder why you weren't listening the first time. It just responds again. That doesn't replace a teacher. But as a tutoring tool? That's powerful.

The “Check Your Work” Problem Came Back to Me

After watching my daughter struggle with something I had assumed was obvious, I started thinking about my own students. How many times have I posted an answer key and said: Go check your work? And how many students interpreted that as: Look at the answer sheet and see if the numbers look approximately familiar? I realized I needed to explicitly teach the process.

So I asked ChatGPT: Can you draw up a list of suggestions for how late elementary and early middle school students should check their work when they are given an answer key? I found my daughter didn't really know what to do last year in fifth grade. I also ask my students to do this all the time when I post an answer key: 'Go check your work.' Now I realize that my students don't always know what that means. Can you draft a list of steps, rules, suggestions, examples, etc.?

And once again, what began as me trying to help my own kid ended up forcing me to rethink something I routinely ask of hundreds of other kids.