^{MPE—the roadmap for life}

 ^“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” 

B. F. Skinner

Before there was GPS, there was MPE.
MPE was similar to GPS in that it provided instruction, guidance, and helped me make sure I got where I was going in life. It was different in that it is required no technology.  It did not come out with a new operating system every six months, and an operation manual was not required.

No, MPE—”My Parents’ Expectations”—focuses entirely on providing a foundation that will guarantee achievement in every area of a child’s life; these expectations include, but are not limited to, education.

Often, MPE statements are clichés that, once recycled into the lives of the young, become the tenets, along with those of their Catholic faith, that undergird their lives. Such was the case with me.

For example, ^“Can’t never could do anything,^” was my father’s MPE response every time my siblings or I whined—usually any time something was, or even gave the appearance that it might be, a little difficult.

^“Now, get busy” always concluded his Can’t declaration. Long before I understood the logic of the first part, the ^“get busy” directive was ingrained in me as habit.

 In this way, my father’s use of MPE developed independence ­and the ability to self-start in me. My father’s MPE was so powerful that Nike and Phil Knight recycled the cliché years later—with­out even bothering to gain his  permission—and adopted it as their “Just Do It” slogan.

Then, there was the “Do your best, work hard, and you can achieve anything you want” MPE mantra in our home. No one was excused from working hard or giving less than his or her very best effort at all times. From experience, my parents knew that adolescence was the training ground for life, so we had chores at home, part-time and summer jobs at an early age, and hordes of extracurricular activities in which to participate. My parents understood how easily society allows individuals to settle for the least that life has to offer; they had shunned the perfect opportunity to do so, and they pushed us to do the same.

My parents didn’t just teach this MPE; they lived it. My father has worked hard his entire life to provide for our family.  He is the definition of a “self-made” man.  Likewise my mother has followed her own MPE, sought her own development, and without ever attending college became the vice-president of a mortgage company.

They both are shining examples of hard work and model parents. At any point during their nearly 40 year marriage they could have easily justified providing the minimum for their children. Instead, my father spent many years working 50 or more hours each week, combining full and part-time jobs to make ends meet to provide for us. While doing so, he never missed a ballgame or other important event in any of our lives. He found the time, somehow, not only to carry us on amusement park trips and tell us stories about his youth, but also to share his dreams, which inspired us to dream, too. At home, my parents constantly read and played games with us, helped us with our homework, and made sure, though money was sometimes scarce, that we got those ^“little ex­tras^” we craved at least once in a while. Their MPE modeling taught us that no adversity in life had to define us if we didn't allow it to do so. We could choose our perspective and our reaction to other people^’s perspectives—we alone were responsible for the outcomes of our own lives, not anyone else.

Lastly, the MPE ^“Get an education^” refrain was so often repeated that I was well into school (1/2 way through my doctoral program) before I realized that the three words could be used separately in a sentence. Ahead of their time in their advocacy for higher edu­cation, my parents promoted college not as an option for me, but as the only op­tion. My parents stressed education as the road to all the opportunities that they wanted for us and that we would eventually want for ourselves. While my siblings and I all attained dif­ferent levels of formal education, each of us continues to grow and use education to achieve what we desire in life.

Only with age and the passing years have I truly realized the gift that my parents were to their children or the gifts that they gave to me in the form of MPE statements. Only in retrospect have I understood that MPE wasn't just about values, discipline, succeeding in life, and expectations; MPE was a gift of love—a love that cared enough to hold itself responsible for not only teaching life lessons, but holding me accountable when I gave excuses instead of my best. So as the school year quickly ends and you begin to think about next year’s classes and students, maybe you’ll also roll out some of your own MPE’s in your classroom next year too. For those students who haven’t been exposed to the MPE, it might make all the difference in the GPA’s.