The lack of perseverance hurts me some days. There's no grit or determination in some of these young people. Why? Some are afraid to fail. Lazy is an easy explanation. Literacy is a slightly more complicated reason. Years upon decades upon generations of disappointment and failure is the most complicated. I have met the parents and grandparents of one of my kids. They all went to the same high school, dropped out, and live in poverty. He's excited when he knows answers and he quits when he's not 100% sure.
Keep pushing them even when you don't feel like it. You may be the only one. Today, I didn't, and I feel bad about it because now he's in lunch detention for not wearing a uniform, which he never does, and I let him slip by without learning anything today.