Education is very much like baseball. The students are the players and the teachers are the coaching staff (with administrators being management). After a summer vacation, students like players need some time to warm up - but after a while you expect them to get back in the groove. A perfect example is the recent addition of Manny Ramirez to the Chicago White Sox lineup. Manny has complained that the reason he hasn't played his best games for the Sox is because of his absense from the sport for most of the season. Although this initially might have been true (more or less) it is clearly time for him to stop making excuses and step it up or consequences will be introduced.
The same thing is true for students. Sometimes teachers need to introduce consequences (or rewards) into the situation to induce results. A student of mine has consistently struggled with the concept of completing homework at home. He has a questionable home life and is, as I believe to be the case, often overlooked. He also suffers from a lack of intrinsic motivation. In order to improve his grades, he will now be missing morning reccess to work with me on his homework - which I think is a small price to pay for significantly ::crosses fingers:: higher grades (or at least more likely). Similiarly, Manny Ramirez should be let go by the White Sox if his batting average does not increase (or at least fined for wasting "our" time).
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