It wasn’t a difficult lesson. It was a boring one. A boring one my students had likely already gone over and over and (now in my class) over again. Frankly, I didn’t want to do it, and neither did my students because as soon as I grabbed the teacher’s manual for the health book from my desk and wander over to the front of the room, I immediately heard a collective groan from all 34 of my students. I empathized.

That’s when I did it. I came clean with my kids. I asked a student in the back of the room to get up and close the classroom door. The rest of the kids immediately hushed as if they knew I was about to spill the beans about something.

It was then that I explained to my class that sometimes in school—and in life—there are things we really don’t want to do, but we have to do them. And this health lesson was one of them. We talked briefly about procrastination, what it is and why it never helps. We discussed things we could do to make the lesson more fun, or at least tolerable for all of us, myself included.

That day I earned the trust of my students. They suddenly understood that I wasn’t some evil drone in the front of the room ready to bark demands at will—or worse—someone willing and wanting to push mindless, boring assignments their way. I wanted them to learn and succeed, and have fun doing it just as much as they did.

We did finish that health lesson, I’m glad to report. I did my professional duty as a teacher, and each and every one of my students dutifully completed the assignment. But what I’m most proud of that day was what came out of the lesson that had nothing to do with the topic at all. My students learned that they had choices. And choice can be a very empowering thing.

Now, years later with children of my own, I think back on this particular day often. With my own children in school, I see the constant demand to work faster and faster, not necessarily smarter. I worry that perhaps in classrooms that grow more and more crowded, with budgets that grow smaller and smaller and needs that only increase, our kids will trade learning for rote memorization. They’ll stop thinking critically and creatively in an effort to just reach the arbitrary benchmarks that have been set for them. And—in my opinion—that’s a sorry state of affairs because we need innovation, kids that are willing to stretch their minds and creativity now so that they can grow to become the cutting edge scientists, leaders and artists of tomorrow. If they’re too scared to think (and experiment) outside of the box that’s been set for them, how will they do so?

In an effort to help my own children and countless others out there, I’ve created “School Survivor,” a place for kids (and the adults who love, care and teach them) to come and explore specific ways they can make school a more fun and success-filled place for them to be. School Survivor is about giving extraordinary kids the tools they need to succeed in ordinary classrooms.