Showing Up

Woody Allen once said 80% of success is showing up. From a school’s standpoint, that quote speaks to attendance. Attending school is an important concept, so important that there are laws that require it and those who don’t are labeled truant. Still millions of school children miss school each day. More often than not, I believe, those absences are due to legitimate reasons like illness. However, many of those children miss school unnecessarily.

When a child misses school, they miss content. I will grant that not every single minute of any given school is filled with robust educational content but throughout the day there is the opportunity for absorption of material that might not be present at home. That is lost entirely if the child does not attend school in one way or another.

What is more troubling is the message a lack of attendance sends to a child. If a parent allows a child to become truant and miss excessively, that child learns that such behavior is acceptable. However, that’s not the case in the real world. Few employers will allow their employees to miss a couple of days of work each week if the reasons for those absences seem unjustified. Failure to attend work has obvious financial consequences which, in turn, can put entire families on steep downward spirals.

Attendance has its role in distance learning and online venues as well. It’s important to understand that online school or even work from home opportunities via the internet still require a presence. One still needs to make the effort to log-in and do what they need to do. Distance learning does not excuse one from their obligation to do something and be somewhere, prepared, at a certain time.

In the end, what Woody Allen meant was that being successful starts with getting where you need to be. If you’re not together enough to do that, you stand no chance of effectively doing much else. It’s important that parents instill this lesson in their children, then the other 20% can take care of itself.