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.
