Today, a mother of a student at my school personally invited her son's foes to meet in her backyard to fight her son. "Ain't nobody gonna disrespect my boy!" After being in education for a decade, not much surprises me anymore, and this comment didn't either, but it did sadden me. First for the young man, then for our teachers who pour so much into their responsibilities to lead students away from bad choices. So much rides on the mindsets of our students when they enter to learn each day, yet the stumbling blocks in their way are enormous. I can't image what this young man would go through if he told his mom that he didn't want to fight. In order to hold his head high at home, he has no choice but to throw down. He truly sees no choice in the matter. One area of need in our school that has been missed (or really nismnamed) is getting students to make the right choices. Many of our students don't think they have choices to make. It's their reality, so teaching cause and effect of their decisions is useless for them. They are stuck with the cause, with no control or care of the effect. We try to teach kids that if they do this, that will happen. There is room for argument that the "ifs" in their lives are sometimes "whens" because they simply have no choice if a cause will happen. What we need to teach is how to create alternative choices we none are available. It's too simple to say, "If you make good choices, good things will happen, and vice versa." We need to teach, "Make good effects when the causes can't be avoided."