The math problems on the board were a blur to Jack. Even though he worked through ten problems the night before he couldn’t figure out what his teacher Mr. Yokosuka was teaching in class. Jack started to feel like giving up. He wanted to put his head down and disappear. He made several long blinks with his eyes and then saw Mr. Yokosuka looking directly at him.
“Mr. Hampton, are you okay?”
“I’m fine sir. Just a little tired.”
“Are you tired of my teaching?”
“No sir…I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Well let’s get you out of your sit…why don’t you show us how to solve this problem on the board.”
Mr. Yokosuka wrote a problem that looked like something out of Albert Einstein’s notebook. Jack could not make heads or tails of it. He continued to stare at it from his seat.
“Are you going to come up and solve the problem for the class Jack?”
“Yes sir.”
Jack got up out of his chair. All of the other kids in class looked at him with blank stares. He cautiously walked to the board trying to think about the problems he had worked on the night before. Numbers just never made sense to Jack and now Mr. Yokosuka had mixed in letters with the numbers. Jack picked up the chalk and thought about trying to solve the problem. Instead he just wrote a big question mark on the board. When the rest of the class saw it they all laughed.
“You have just earned yourself a trip to Mr. Roderick’s office Mr. Hampton. I will see you after school to see if you belong in this class.”
Mr. Yokosuka handed Jack a slip to be given to Mr. Roderick. Jack picked up his backpack and headed out of Mr. Yokosuka’s room. He didn’t know what would happen now, but knew he needed to take the slip to Mr. Roderick.
The hallway was empty and quiet. Jack drug his feet that felt heavy from running. He couldn’t believe that despite wanting to play for Mr. Roderick that everything was going incredibly wrong. When he got to Mr. Roderick’s office the door was locked, so Jack had a seat on one of the empty chairs sitting outside his office. After Jack sat for a few minutes one of the secretaries from the main office walked by.
“Are you waiting for Mr. Roderick?”
“Yes…Mr. Yokosuka sent me down with this slip.”
The secretary examined the slip and started shaking her head.
“That man is always trying to pull this.”
“Pull what?”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that out loud. Why don’t you come with me to Mrs. Cordova’s office? She’ll get this straightened out.”
“You mean my counselor?’
“Yes…let’ see if she’s busy?”
The secretary led Jack around the corner and down the hall to Mrs. Cordova’s office. The secretary marched right past the lady sitting at the front desk in the counseling office and into Mrs. Cordova’s office.
“Mrs. Cordova…we have another casualty from Mr. Yokosuka’s class”
“Who is it this time?”
“I don’t know his name…he must be new.”
Jack came into Mrs. Cordova’s office and grinned.
“Oh hi Jack…come in and sit down…thank you Mary…I’ll take it from here…so what’s going on Jack?”
“I couldn’t solve the problem on the board so I wrote a question mark and got sent to Mr. Roderick’s office.”
“Mr. Yokosuka does not like even the slightest signs of disrespect…Did he tell you that you needed to be tested?”
“He told me to come back to his class after school to see if I really belonged in his class.”
“That means he wants to test you. Your test scores from your previous school were high enough to get you in Mr. Yokosuka’s class.”
“But I was pretty dumb at my old school.”
“You’re actually very smart Jack. Most of your test scores show that you very high intelligence, but that your work ethic is pretty low.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t show signs that you’re willing to work hard.”
“I like to stay busy though.”
“Working and being busy are two different things…do you want me to give you an example?”
“Sure.”
“What do you know about Lions?”
“Well I know that they live in Africa and that they’re pretty dangerous.”
“Good…Do you know how they hunt?”
“Nope…I have no idea.”
“Lions are organized into family groups called prides.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“It can be…in a pride there is one dominant male lion and several female lions. The male lion stays busy by protecting the pride from other males. Sometimes he is so busy doing this that he just sits around in the shade watching for any signs of predators. The female lion’s job is to hunt for the pride. They search for zebras or other animals they can kill and bring back for the whole pride to eat.”
“So what’s the difference?”
“That’s up to you to decide. Who do you think works harder?”
“It probably depends on the situation. If the male lion is faced with a lot of predators then he is working harder. If the pride is big and needs lots of food then the females are working harder.”
“Very good Jack…I have never thought of it that way…So which role would you like to play in a lion pride?”
“Probably no role…I would be the zebra the lions are hunting.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Most people want me to do one thing or another and they’re always trying to tell me what to do…that’s probably more like being hunted.”
“What if the people trying to tell you what to do are actually trying to get you to hunt alongside them?”
“That’s a possibility…I didn’t think of it that way before. It would be pretty cool to bring down a zebra with a bunch of other lions.”
“It takes work to hunt zebras. Zebras are fast and the female lions need to work together, run hard, and be strategic. They don’t just automatically overpower a zebra, it takes a lot of time and patience.”
“So are you saying the female lions work harder than the males?”
“Most people tend to see it that way, but I hadn’t thought about a pride coming under threat before which would give the male a very big job.”
“Well I see your point…do you want me to work harder in Mr. Yokosuka’s class?”
“I want you to work hard in all of your classes Jack. I want you to think if you’re working hard or if you’re just being busy.”
“I can work hard in other areas of my life too…right?”
“What do you mean Jack?”
“Well…like I can work hard getting ready to try out for the basketball team and I can work hard at trying to earn some extra money…right?”
“Yes Jack you can. Oh…there’s the bell…you better hurry off to your next class.”
“What should I do about Mr. Yokosuka’s class?”
“Don’t worry about it…show up to class like normal tomorrow. I’ll have a talk with him, he wants to be sure you work hard too. Thanks for talking Jack.”
“Thank you. See you around.”
Jack ran off to his next class feeling better than he had in a while. He thought about the lions and bringing down a zebra. He knew he didn’t want to be a lazy lion that waited for others to bring him his dinner. He wanted to go out and get it himself.