The completion of high school is commonly regarded as the end of a person’s formative years. If this is still the case, high school seniors must be prepared to assume the responsibilities of adulthood, including a willingness to work hard, even if they plan to continue their education in college. There should be less emphasis on memorising facts at the end of high school in favour of focusing on the skills and attitudes that are necessary for those who want to help others. There are three things that adults need: insight, empathy, and logic, all of which can be developed through writing and math problems; the ability to plan, so that they can set and achieve important personal goals; and self-control, which can only be achieved through self-discipline. It has evolved into a combination of fact-obsession (in response to testing), dishonest self-promotion (a lot of it), and party-time (“to forget how stressed we are.”). As a result, too many children end up regressing rather than progressing in an orderly fashion. I used to point the finger at specific seniors when it came to the negative aspects of our culture. Actually, the processing of any experience I still fundamentally feel it’s up to the individual, but I’ve come to believe that adults can do more to change the experience they’re offering to young people who are almost adults.
That being said, it is a good idea to focus on the senior year. I believe that the goal is to use the current anxiety about the senior year (for all Americans, not just those in need of remediation) to identify and address larger issues. Three stand out as particularly important, urgent, and doable:
High school seniors seem to be wasting their time by focusing solely on getting to the next level. Too often, the lack of challenging academic, experiential or civic work in the first two years of college or work leads to an unfocused period of time that often persists into the first two years of college and/or work. Many seniors appear to have met all of the requirements for graduation. Individualized programmes are clearly needed for the final year of high school, but this has often led to a lack of rigour in this case. Electives have been devalued far too often through their promotion. 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. Sorting out what to do and where to go to college after high school is an important and frightening “sorter.” For many seniors, confronting the fact that both sides will be selected with what feels like lifelong finality is an overwhelming part of their experience. 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.
A good idea would be to use time wisely and make clear from the beginning of high school what a student needs to know and be able to do by the time he or she is working in a successful job. Teachers and students in high school could benefit greatly from advice from college professors and supervisors in the workplace, especially when it comes to describing the tasks at hand and the skills, knowledge, and personal qualities that are necessary to succeed. This happens when the translation is too automatic, or the question of “teacher turf” becomes too sensitive or when the high school teacher’s own assessments are undervalued as “uninformed,” “too subjective,” or “inadequate,” as in “four years of English, whatever “English” is.”
Students in our educational institutions are being encouraged and prepared for a variety of career paths by teaching them to consider their options now rather than later. However, previous attempts at career reports and job shadowing have been less successful than we had hoped. We’re putting the incoming freshmen in courses that are specific to their interests or career goals. A student can select a career path that interests them and then take classes that are already categorised as appropriate for that career field in this programme. Attitude, I believe, is an important consideration. If someone doesn’t want to learn, you can’t get them to learn. Make the school more like a place they want to go and learn in, rather than a place they have to go. Many students, even those who get good grades, still seem to despise going to school because they see it as something they have to do.
In public education, resources such as technology, well-trained teachers, administrators, and adequate facilities are not a luxury but a necessity as well as a wise investment..