What Can You Learn From a Fourth Grader?

One of my very first memories of learning a serious life lesson was when I was a fourth grader. How was I supposed to know that you could actually fail in school?

The best kind of lessons are the ones learned during childhood!

So, let me give you a little background here. For primary school, I was in Ghana. In elementary school there, and they have their school year divided into three terms (basically semesters). Being a 4th grader at the time, I can’t say I was really aware of impactful consequences.

In fact, up to that point, I hadn’t had a perception truly that you could actually fail in school lol. I didn’t really understand that kids had to repeat classes, and believed that it was just an empty threat parents said to scare their kids into studying. That year would be my first real taste of consequences as a result of my own actions.

Come end of first term, my mom has to go pick up my report card. Now, let’s go back into the past with me: my mom leaves the house to get my report card from school. I’m wrestling with my sister, wearing boxer shorts on my head pretending to have long hair like Shawn Michaels from WWF, roughhousing and playing to my heart’s desire. Mom gets back, I know because I hear the car horn honk outside. Clueless as to what’s awaiting me, I was excited to see my mom. She enters, I sense this weird foreign tension in the air and I could feel her disappointment.

Van Damme was my favorite movie star!

Feelings shift from excitement to worry to a ping of fear from the unknown, you know that, “What’s going on here?” fear. Up to that instant, I really had no idea that students were ranked by teachers from the very first term and how important that was.

I knew from her look that I was in trouble. She explained that I had ranked 28th out of a total of 31 students. I will never forget that feeling I had and the look on her face as she spoke. My dad comes home later that evening, and of course, he learned of my predicament. Let’s just say, all hell broke loose in the eyes of a fourth grader.

I was grounded. No more tv, video games, outings - it was like my whole life now revolved around studying. My dad’s anger had made it very clear that this unacceptable and it needed to be remedied, with no exceptions.

At that young of an age, it was my first real understanding of the consequences of the real world. You CAN fail, you CAN repeat classes, and, at the end of the day, this was a competition. We were being tracked and ranked and (my favorite quote to this day) “numbers don’t lie!”

My sister always had a front row seat to the show!

I remember that after that experience, I had to consistently turn in schoolwork and grades to my parents for monitoring. My mom would sit down and tutor me. The game had changed and my competitive competencies were born.

So, the second term rolls around at GIS (Ghana International School) and mom picks up my report card. I’m sure you’re curious to know what my ranking was? You really wanna know?

……I was 8th in the class! Yes! I moved from 28th to 8th in one term! You better believe I didn’t stop there. We studied and worked hard and by third term, I was 2nd in my class of 31 kids! I still cried my eyes out, because I wanted the number one spot. But my parents reassured me that they were mighty proud of their first son.

From then on, throughout my education in Ghana, I was always ranking within the top 5. At such a tender age, I learned the how hard work and discipline can guarantee success.

That experience shaped my thought process around working your way for the top spot. I had proven to myself time and time again how your attitude, behavior and actions can impact and determine an outcome, leading me to believe that YOU decide the direction of your life and how successful you can be!