All students have a right to an education and to be provided the support and training they need to graduate from high school and to be successful after high school. More resources such as technology, well-trained teachers, administrators, and adequate facilities are not a luxury in public education but a necessity as well as a wise investment. Certainly the “system” we have developed for K-12 needs to be made relevant for today’s world. I think many of the suggestions posed are worth looking at, but until pilots are done and the results are evaluated, I am not aware of any simple answers. Hopefully, our review of the information received and our discussions during this year will provide some ideas worth pursuing in earnest. Involving students in the process might also bring good suggestions. Having met with a group of students on another topic last week, we may often overlook valuable input and insight if they are not consulted.
The implications of any change will have ripple effects throughout the education and workplace settings. However, we already have young people who are making their own changes with entrepreneurial activities during their educational experience.
Students on the cusp of adulthood have to be ready to take on its responsibilities, including a readiness to work hard, even for those going on to the very pleasurable experience of college. The end of high school should focus less on the hasty gathering of bits of information and more on the skills and attitudes which are needed in those who want to be of use to others. Adults need insight and empathy, in order to know what is important to others; they need logical thinking, as developed by writing and math problems; and they must be able to plan, to set important personal goals and then control themselves enough to achieve them.
The result, too often, is regression rather than a careful, deliberate process of growing up. I used to blame individual seniors for not being able to resist the culture’s more damaging aspects. In fact, the processing of any experience I still fundamentally feel it is up to the individual, but I now believe that there is more than adults can do to reshape the experience which they are offering to their nearly-adult young.
The mission, it seems to me, is to use the anxiety that presently centers on the senior year (for all Americans, not just those in need of remediation) to identify, and work on, larger problems. Three are especially noteworthy, pressing and do-able:
– Wasted Time: Seniors in high school seem to lack much purpose except for getting themselves into the next stage. The resulting lack of challenging academic, experiential or civic work leads to a fallow and unfocused time, with bad habits that too often last into the first two years of college and/or work. For many seniors, the common requirements for graduation have ostensibly been met. The marketing of electives has too often cheapened them. The experience of transition is misunderstood and painful and has led to a pervasive culture of slacking, boredom and of “I’m too old for this place.”
– Sorting: High school is a relatively common experience. The imminence of the world after high school – what kind of work, what kind of college – is an important and terrifying “sorter.” Much of the senior’s experience is in confronting the reality of the fact that selection will take place, on both sides, with what feels to them like lifelong finality. Energy which might be put into real growth is instead put into “playing the game,” of manipulating that selection process. Most do so both honestly and dishonestly, which dispirits the seniors even if they have been successful because they cannot be sure if their being accepted was based on real accomplishment or on the various techniques which they adopted to make themselves look good.
– Ineffective Communication: It would be a great idea to use time well, and to be clear from the beginning of high school what a student needs to know and be able to do by the tune he or she is working in a good job. Lots of advice for high school teachers and their students from college teachers and supervisors in the work-place would be helpful, especially as they describe jobs to be done, and the knowledge, proficiencies and personal qualities which help the worker to succeed. The problem comes when the translation is too automatic (as in “four years of English,” whatever “English” is), or when the question of “teacher turf” grows too sensitive, or when the high school teacher’s own assessments are undervalued as “uninformed” or “too subjective.”
The most dramatic statement (recommendations) I can make at this point is that a simple rework of the senior year will not achieve the intended results unless:
– A review of the grade 9-11 structure must also occur (7-11 particularly in districts that have not embraced the turning point middle school recommendations put forth by Carnegie); and
– Current policies, strategies and assumptions about what we want our high school students to “look like” are appropriately challenged and reshaped into a clear set of recommendations for all students to transition from school to adult with opportunities for intense concentration in an area of interest.
High School graduation requirements should be worked out at the school level by faculty and approved by parents and supervising boards, accepted by students who come to the school (who – one hopes! – have some choice in what school they attend), and which lay out the proficiencies and knowledge which a young person needs to be considered an effective adult.
These requirements will not consist only of long-ago earned Carnegie units and/or test scores, but will be based on a system of promotion by performance and by portfolio during the junior high school and high school years. Although most students will complete the faculty’s expectations by the time they are about eighteen, others will move through the program more or less quickly. The “fixed” will be the basic proficiency standards; the “variables” will be the time it takes to achieve them, and the ways in which these proficiencies are displayed. Breadth in the curriculum will also vary according to the student. Senior year will be dominated by a rigorous senior seminar, which will include a substantial senior project, possibly including an internship, and which will lead to a Graduation Exhibition which can be described and explained to all interested parties.
A new kind of transcript will need to be developed to describe the student’s progress throughout high school, especially during the senior year. If we are going to ask potential employers and college admissions officers to take high school transcripts seriously, we will have to make sure we are writing in a language which we both understand. The senior year should be a challenging set of experiences that allows students to demonstrate that they are ready for the next step, be it further study or to pursue employment in a career-pathway field.
College and work entry requirements should be made clearer. In the case of college, they should be worked out by college faculties and accepted by supervisory boards and clients of the institution (students, their parents, and others who help to pay the costs of college) which lay out the proficiencies and knowledge which a young person needs to be able to do the entry-level work in that institution.
A second transcript (or a second part of the transcript) will need to be developed collaboratively by college and high school teachers, to make it possible for some high school graduates to go right on to college. Those who are deemed not ready to do entry level work in the college they wish to attend will need to be told relatively early exactly what their deficiencies are and will need to be given help, including new kinds of teaching, to enable them to achieve the desired results. If this help is offered and taken advantage of during the senior year in high school, it will surely remove the “permission to coast” which so many seniors have assumed.
When a student is told that, at the moment, he/she cannot do entry level work in either college or a specific part of the workplace, there need to be several forms of “remediation” available. When the problem is low ability, extensive work with counselors should help the student decide what the areas are in which he/she has more proficiency and promise, and what kind of training would be most appropriate to pursue that future. When the problem is poor prior training, it can be made up, but adequate time must be set aside to do so. Other plans for the student’s time – other courses, work, sports – must be given up, at least if the student plans to keep to a specific timetable. This is not a trivial problem and cannot be handled by a “brief” course.
When the problem is motivation, it should be identified, accepted and tackled by a combination of counselors and teachers. (It is not necessarily a teacher’s “fault” that a student doesn’t work in his class. At the same time, the teacher needs to appreciate the reasons why a student may not be motivated if a real connection is to be made.) When the problem is maturity, it should be dealt with by keeping college preparation programs open for older ages, perhaps in the high school at night.
In many individuals, all of these factors are what cause the need for remediation. This is why there is no single, efficient – and certainly no cheap – solution. The best job of helping such students will be done by an ongoing policy of promotion by performance that has led to at least some self-knowledge all along, and by self-respecting teachers in schools that have kept their teachers’ load low enough so that they can really know their students. These teachers are most likely to be able to work with students to analyze the problem and determine what the best course of action will be.
That being said, my opinions closely align with the advice shown below:
– Much of the work asked of each student should have obvious value in the school community, and/or in the broader social sphere outside the educational institution;
– The educational institution should provide students with the opportunity to pursue a particular interest deeply and to have a significant level of choice regarding the content of their studies;
– The educational institution should involve its students in regular and meaningful interaction with other age groups;
– The educational institution should include nurturing contact from close, caring adults and foster the building of a caring community among students; and
– The educational institution should be run in a way that recognizes other aspects of students’ lives and grants a significant degree of autonomy and responsibility.
College graduation requirements should be publicized to demonstrate the further proficiencies and knowledge that a person needs to achieve beyond the entry level. These should stress readiness to do sustained, complex and difficult work, so that the student considering the college will know what attitudes as well as proficiencies will need to be acquired and then enlarged upon in college. Emphasis should be on the fact that choosing college is fundamentally choosing a different kind of present and future work. Too often, college is seen as a kind of moratorium, which clearly affects both it and the high school senior year.
It is perhaps naive to insist that every eighteen-year-old is ready, emotionally or intellectually, to do sustained, complex and difficult work. Some can; some can’t – yet. However, high school seniors need to see beyond the minimum entry requirements of college, to be able to imagine the hurdles ahead, both in the upper levels of college and in the workplace. These hurdles are largely ones of integrity, persistence and a sense of personal responsibility. Ways of measuring these qualities have not been developed with any kind of scientific precision, and perhaps that’s good, since so many students improve in these respects during their early adulthood.
Still, high school teachers who have been able to get to know their students have hunches about these qualities. Progress reports written by teachers and counselors all through high school can increasingly refer to these qualities as they develop, so that students and parents are reminded of their importance. During senior year, those who write recommendations for college and the workplace are frequently asked about their impression of the students as potential workers and citizens; they may also be encouraged to cite the evidence behind these impressions, in order to draw a more compelling portrait of the candidate. These recommendations are already part of our communication process, but they need to be taken more seriously by both sides.
I think an important issue that we need to consider is attitude. You cannot motivate somebody to learn if they do not want to learn. We need to make the school environment more of a place where they want to go, where they want to learn. I still see many students, even students with excellent grades, who do not want to be in school, they see it as a place where they have to go. Something that some schools have implemented is catering to the different learning styles of the students. The teachers in some schools used to lecture all the time and not many people learn that way, so they implemented different teaching styles, like project-based learning and more kids have benefited from it than before.
The problem with that idea is the fact that we would need to personalize each school to those students and that is not very feasible. These are some ideas I hope to bring up, but I’m even more excited to hear other people’s ideas and begin to build on them and see how we can make better schools in our nation.
Education in the 21st Century must extend beyond the walls of high school. Students expect to be connected with relative information through technology and numerous other means of experience. Schools cannot be the sole provider of such education. Therefore, every school administrator must become a leader in connecting partners in ways that make sense in their school communities. Each school is unique. Rural, suburban, and urban schools bring different issues to the table. Defining community and establishing partnerships within those communities are similar goals for each. Many models of successful partnerships in all of these settings can be shared with schools to help them along this journey.
I think many of the important issues have been raised in the materials prepared here. In the discussions that will ensue, I believe it is important to balance the desired outcome of the 12th year with the overall goals of secondary education. Early specialization that limits the adolescent’s exposure to a breadth of disciplines can result in a “successful” functionary versus an educated person interested in and capable of learning across many disciplines and areas of engagement. One of the most important issues facing students today is adequate and consistent preparation for college or the world of work, upon graduation. Public schools need to partner not only with local businesses and industries but also with local community colleges. These partnerships could help ensure transition and preparation for transition.
These findings clearly would hold wide-scale “implications for change” for our senior year project and all grade levels for that matter. And as the study goes on to indicate with these design principles in mind, and with an eye toward the most pressing needs for secondary and post-secondary students, we then make a series of recommendations within five broad areas of educational reform:
– Higher Education Admission Policies and Practices
– The Standards Movement
– Curriculum
– Pedagogy
– Institutional Size
The most important message for the nation is: High school education is not enough in today’s world. Post-secondary education is a necessity in this information age. How well we prepare our children to live productive, contributing lives in this information society will determine our individual, as well as collective future in not just this country, but indeed, the world.
Jeff Palmer is a teacher, success coach, trainer, Certified Master of Web Copywriting and founder of https://Ebookscheaper.com. Jeff is a prolific writer, Senior Research Associate and Infopreneur having written many eBooks, articles and special reports.