I know I’ve been on this “do my kids really have to go to college?” bender for a while now, but yesterday’s New York Times column by Charles Murray has added some new fuel to the fire. In “Should the Obama Generation Drop Out?” Murray basically makes the case that a) a bachelor’s degree should not be the prime determiner of employment as an adult and b) for most kids, the bachelor’s is a credential that is “beyond their reach” yet we spend countless hours and dollars in preparation and pursuit anyway.
Let me just say, once again, I am not anti college or anti-intellectual. What I am is anti the treadmill that we’ve set up for many kids in primarily upper middle class suburban schools that streamlines them into a very narrow track to a four year degree right out of high school. The treadmill my kids are going to be encouraged to climb on in the very near future. The one my wife and kids and I are going to have to decide whether we want them on. The statistics are pretty compelling: only about one in four Americans have a bachelor’s degree, and college dropout rates are over 50%. As Murray says,
For most of the nation’s youths, making the bachelor’s degree a job qualification means demanding a credential that is beyond their reach. It is a truth that politicians and educators cannot bring themselves to say out loud: A large majority of young people do not have the intellectual ability to do genuine college-level work…[And] Many young people who have the intellectual ability to succeed in rigorous liberal arts courses don’t want to. For these students, the distribution requirements of the college degree do not open up new horizons. They are bothersome time-wasters.
Now that doesn’t mean I don’t think my kids can’t succeed at college. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t fully appreciate the advantages my kids have in growing up in a white, upper middle class home where both parents are educated by the traditional means and (hopefully) intellectually curious enough to motivate their kids to learn. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t know the economic benefits of a college degree. But I can’t help but think that my kids have opportunities to learn what they need to know to be successful in ways that I didn’t, ways that in some measure may have been there all along and that maybe I didn’t take advantage of, but ways that are also brand new and game-changers. This is not a suggestion that we replace a bachelor’s with a blog, btw, but it is an open question as to whether or not my kids have more ways to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to be successful and show what they can do on an unprecedented scale. And if so, it’s a challenge to move them off of a college treadmill and onto a learning treadmill where the system’s job is not necessarily to raise it’s college acceptance rates but to prepare all kids for a variety of choices and scenarios upon which they can create their futures.
More and more, all I want from my kids’ school is to help me identify what they love, what their strengths are, and then help them create their own paths to mastery of their passions. Stop spending so much time focusing on subjects or courses that “they need for college” but don’t interest them in the least. Help them become learners who will be able to find and make good use of the knowledge that they need when they need it, whether that means finding an answer online or taking a college course to deepen their understanding. And finally, prepare them to create their own credentials that will powerfully display their capabilities, passions and potentials. (And I know that my more immediate challenge right now is to figure out whether or not my kids’ public school system can do that and, if not, what to do about it. More on that later.)
Maybe I’m dreaming. Or maybe it’s because the last seven years have turned me into an “alternate route” learner and passion-based professional, and intellectually I’ve just loved this SO much more than when I went to college (though college did have its moments…just not usually in the classroom.) Either way, it just feels like there’s going to be some shift happening here in the next few years as well, and I, at least, have to start thinking about it sooner rather than later.
(Photo “Stairway to learning” by Point-Shoot-Edit.)
I was educated in the British system, where liberal arts colleges do not exist, but now teach in a US liberal arts college precisely because I believe in the model. But, and it is a big but, there are gaps between what liberal arts education should be and what it too often is. The treadmill aspects can often be present, particularly where the degree is seen by parents, institution, and/or students as the path to something (job, law school, whatever) rather than as the journey of discovery and self-discovery it could and should be. All of us involved in this process – faculty, administrators, parents, students, public – can make changes to how we approach the possibilities of the liberal arts education in order to make the process more meaningful and rewarding. Many of us are trying to do just that.
And while I am a fan and promoter of the significant learning resources available outside formal insitutions, I believe that a good liberal arts college education is an important experience if one can get it – a learning community where one can develop and test critical and expressive tools that will be truly useful life-long.
There is one major change that could produce very significant results by itself: get the kids off the treadmill.
It is the rare high school graduate who is ready to take full advantage of what a Bachelor’s course can offer. A year away from education – traveling, working, volunteering, growing up – before college should be the preferred option, the default, not the rarity it is in the US. It is common enough in Europe, and often very successful. Our undergrads who return from their Junior Years all around the world (we send around 2/3 of them abroad) are often, finally, the kind of curious, thoughtful, broad-minded students who are ready to take advantage of what we can offer them. And they get a year of it before they move on. If more of our students came to us at the beginning in something like that frame of mind, they would get a great deal more out of their college experience.
I did not take a year out between school and university. I had a fabulous time and learnt a lot, but missed so many opportunities. It was only in my mid-20s, looking back, that I realized what fantastic resources had been available to me, had I only had the wisdom to use them. What parents can do for their children is give them as many opportunities as possible to develop such wisdom. A year out between school and college could be the best such opportunity.
Thanks, Ed.
I’m already planting seeds in my kids’ heads about studying abroad. I feel like I already have a number of nodes that I could reach out to in terms of getting them some international experience. I’d love them to take some time off before going to school to find/pursue their passions. I wish I had.
Overseas travel, particularly to the developing world, was hugely transformative for my children and brought us closer together. I recommend it.
Both of my daughters also spent 8 weeks as 9th graders living and studying in an immersive learning community overseas.
Will,
We can agree, disagree or agree to disagree on this matter, but I have serious concerns over the expert you cite in this blog. I wrote about the issue here – http://www.welearnathome.com/blog/2008/12/21st-century-skill-1-know-thy-source.html
When I read your post, it was like reading my own thought about 15 years ago. I have three kids who have just finished college (hurray!!! I will now be able to eat more than mac’ncheese for dinner and not work 3 jobs to put them through college).
Like you, their dad and I are college educated and believe it was the best course for their lives. Out of the three, though…I have one that hated school. Pretty much boring for her even though she did HS and college in 3 years each. She was just made out of a temperament that was more pragmatic and the structured, narrowed AP curriculums were too confining for her. The best thing we did for her was to allow her to chase her passions in debate and cooking!!!! She’s married, has a fanatstically challenging and satisfying job in the financial areas.
The other two kids were much more traditional. But I have to say that I agree that thinking “school” would have been too confining for them, too. I sent my oldest daughter when she was in HS off to do Earthwatch trips in Baja Mexico to ignite her passion about biology…had her travel to Germany to practice her languages, made her practice the viola so she could tour with our city’s youth symphony and so on. My son was much the same story…no AP courses for him. I forced him into Creative Writing and Literature of the Theatre…dragged hiim to live jazz events, sent him to music camps and so on.
I made all of them volunteer through their church and scout groups as much as possible and had them travel, travel, travel. They knew about more than the world where we lived because their experiences away from school. I wanted them to have a heart for other people and to know their own mind.
I thinking taking this nonconformist path was hard on them. When everyone was rushing to get into AP courses, I did not so they did no. Instead I wanted them to do honors courses and work with someone in the community (ala an internship of sorts) to get real life looks at the topics they were studying. While everyone pushed us to take foreign languages, I preferred to send them to places where they would have to sink or swim in learning the language. As bad as this sounds, I enrolled them in more math classes, woodworking & arts classes, extra history or literature. The threat was always that they “wouldn’t get into college”. I just kept hanging onto the belief that if they were smart, it would show when it was needed. I thought they’d find colleges that appreciated kids that were interchangeable widgets in the college grinding out factory. I also believed that HS wasn’t the end….it was just the beginning and that education needed to be as broad as possible for as long as possible to make well educated kids. It’s the same way I felt about picking their colleges. I wanted small, liberal arts colleges where the emphasis was teaching…not publishing or research. I wanted places where they could go and major in biology but still have time for women’s studies OR major in applied math but still be involved in coaching their HS debate team OR major in philosophy and still play in the jazz combos/bands. Being 22 is still young and why specialize until college is over???
I know it felt like they were “falling behind” while it now seems like they were accelerating. So much peer pressure from other parents that I wasn’t “making” them do the right thing. I just couldn’t get why you’d want to do college when you were in HS. Why not do college when you go? I think it’s a huge bait ‘n switch that they can get through college faster and you’ll save $$$. Almost none of the kids that our family knew that did all this AP stuff finished in less than 4 years…it really seems like kids are taking longer because they change their minds about what they want to study.
All that time, trouble and flack we took….well I can tell you that they have all followed their own drummers from about age 15 onwards. My oldest daughter is midway through a PhD in biochemistry. I don’t have much more than a sliver of understanding about the genetics she does, but I know this much. It was all those outside of school experiences that leveraged the “school” learning into this passion. I’m not saying that either was preferred over the other…but I don’t think she’d be where she is without the balance and perspective of each. My youngest is doing a Post-Bacc fellowship in philosophy. Classical philosophy is his gig…. (What else would a jazz drummer persue?) until he starts down his PhD path. I already mentioned that my middle daughter is a business whiz and extremely successful in her chosen path.
So I guess I want to encourage parents to be brave and not listen to school savvy advice. You know your kids’ hearts better than anyone. You are their guardian and the vision they lack since they just growing up and you have to steer them in ways that broaden their thinking and open more options to them. I thought that was my job as their mom….instilling the wings to dream and realistically imagine doing anything they wanted. My biggest realization is that I would have never thought any of the three would do what they’re doing!!!! It is better than I could have dreamed…so I also think you just have to get out of the way and watch them find the adventure that is their life.
Marsha,
All I can say is “you rock!” There is much to be said for being brave, and I’ve been learning that lesson more and more as I grow older. I want to help my kids find their drummers and be damned with the conventional expectations. If they truly love what they do, I think they’ll be just fine. The fine line is knowing where and when to push and guide and where and when to let them find their own path.
Just three thoughts (and maybe these are both things that Murray talks about in his article too):
* I think there are a lot of students (and parents of students who have these expectations) who go to college with not so much the intention of finishing a degree but rather to get something “beyond high school.” Sometimes, that’s a CC; a lot of times where I teach, it seems like it is maybe two years full-time and then another decade to finish it part-time. In other words, I wonder to what extent intentions of educators (our students start a college career with the intention of finishing with a BA/BS degree) match up with all students (I’ll go to college full-time for a year or two, and then see what happens). Which leads me to….
* … this question/comment: how is “drop-out” being defined here? At the university where I teach, we have a lot of students who are returning after having previously “stopped,” and students who are attending so part-time it literally takes them 10 years to finish a 4 year undergrad degree. Are these students, who are not traditional full-time 18-22 year olds, “drop-outs?”
* Finally, I wonder to what extent Murray et al account for higher education’s “norming/vetting” factor, even if it is just a year or two of college. One of the reasons why you could hire someone right out of high school into a job that nowadays requires “some college” is it used to be a heck of a lot easier to discriminate. I mean, an employer looking for an entry-level account executive wouldn’t have to worry so much about qualifications; he just had to hire the “right kind of guy” for the job.
Obviously, you can’t do that nowadays, and obviously, that’s a very good thing. But because employers can’t just hire someone of the “right class/ethnicity/religion/gender” anymore, they do the next best thing: hire someone with a college degree (or “some college”), which proves at least to an extent that the person being hired is familiar with the trappings of the “right class/ethnicity/religion/gender” etc.
Is this a “good idea” in terms of society as a whole and individuals within it? Probably not. But it seems to me it’s one of the many reasons why someone who is hoping for a middle-class/upper-middle class job in this country had better go to college, even if they end up dropping out.
Hey Stephen,
Nice to hear from you again!
Great points, especially the last. It’s interesting to think that some college is better than none…it’s not an all or nothing, is it. Funny when you put that in the perspective of people complaining that they “wasted” money on college if they didn’t get the degree.
unfortunately, our current system forces parents to play the game too. My recent high school graduate has none of the skills she needs to secure truly gainful employment, but in order to keep her on my health insurance, she must be enrolled in at least twelve credits per semesterr in college. So even if we wanted to buck the system, we can’t afford to.
Thanks to Will for another provocative thread!
Let’s hope Arne Duncan brings a vision of education (his new job, it seems) that is as broad as the one displayed here, and recognizes how significant learning happens apart from schools. Would that more Americans be able to pursue their own happiness as a result of this president’s new administration!
(Waves at Steven, to whom I believe I am not related.)
🙂
@Marsha As we say in Quaker Meeting, “That Friend speaks my mind.” Good for you for staying true to your parental instincts!
As a high school counselor, I wrestle with these issues on a daily basis, and am grateful when given the opportunity to work with families in which the parents are willing to define “success” on their child’s own terms.
If you’re not reading Maya Frost’s New Globals blog (e.g. http://www.mayafrost.com/blog/?p=337) you might want to… she’s an articulate proponent of some “out of the box” thinking on the “now what” question students and parents face at the end of high school.
In my experience, the messages that parents inadvertently send during their children’s secondary school journey are worth a lot more attention than most parents give them.
Off to read the Murray article… (thanks for the tip!)
I think the “treadmill’ idea is a good one Will.
For many kids today that is what university has become – 300 in a class – no contact with the prof only with harassed TA’s. Courses based on exams that are mainly about replicating the course material. Mark inflation. And many kids who should not be there.
But until recently the data was clear – if you had a degree you did better in life economically.
But with the new economy I wonder? Wonder about the ROI – a BA and $40k of debt. This bet on the future looks like a poor investment now – and can you borrow the money anyway?
Secondly – who is it that insists on the credentials from the treadmill? The institutions – who themselves are now looking less viable everyday.
I suspect that the enterprises that will survive and thrive in the next decade will insist on hiring people who can do the work at hand.
I also suspect that many who are fitted to be real students will do a Joseph Campbell – who when over controlled by his PHD supervisor in the early 1930’s – left school and read books for 5 years.
Surely this was how most of the greats learned in the past too?
Why should not education be knocked over by the econolypse?
Which reminds me – as states buckle under financial pressure – they will have to layoff teachers and reduce their funding for universities. ED as we know it will itself be forced into a financial corner – maybe Will so much of what you hope for will happen because of the shortage of public money to support the old system?
Thanks Will for the thought provoking idea, although I will have to disagree with you on this one. Above you said, “More and more, all I want from my kids’ school is to help me identify what they love, what their strengths are, and then help them create their own paths to mastery of their passions.” Speaking from a personal point of view, I think that that is an extremely tall order, and a challenge that I don’t believe many educators are up to or have the time for in this era of high stakes testing.
As an educator, besides the curriculum, one of my main goals is to help students identify what they are passionate about and for them to explore career options. But personally, I didn’t have the faintest idea what I wanted to do professionally when I left high school. I was so incredibly busy playing three sports a year, working a part time job, having a social life and oh yeah, the whole school and homework thing that I didn’t have the time to think what I wanted to do when I got older. I have spoken to this with a lot of my friends and they have all said that they didn’t know what they wanted to do upon leaving high school either. We all just went to college in order to make ourselves more employable in the future. I finally, at the age of 26 and two career changes, figured out what I want to be (a business ed teacher). And while going through those career changes, I discovered that all of the job postings REQUIRED a college degree and about a half to three-quarters required an MBA. At a recent holiday party, I discovered that all 8 of my male friends either have or are getting their MBA. The main reason cited for this is just to remain competitive in the workforce.
Now I hope that the new economy will change all of this, but it certainly isn’t here yet. I hope that everyone finds what they are passionate about and is able to make a living at it, but a college degree is a nice safety net to have while you are searching.
Hey Bret,
I don’t think we disagree as I think we both want that for our schools but we both feel like it’s almost an impossible task for them to achieve.
Thanks for the thoughts…
I never thought of my college experience as a learning treadmill. My years there were some of the best years of my life for sure. The 6 months I spent backpacking in 3rd world countries also rates up there. Both of these experiences were processes of self discovery as much as they were about a curriculum and that’s what college provided me.
I have a liberal arts education and I don’t believe any amount of technology or “online learning community” could duplicate what happened for me at college. I wouldn’t be half the person I am today without it. College does force experiences on you sometimes that you probably would not choose but this can make you a better person. I would say a lot of those experiences helped me see the world in a different way and if I could have avoided them at the time I would have. This is called dicipline. Of the 50 percent of drop outs how many do you think actually intellectually could not do the work, or lacked the dicipline to do the work? I would say a high percentage lack the dicipline not the ability.
With your support your kids could flourish without the college degree but your guidance would be key. Not everyone has that kind of guidance from within the family.
I think you raise an interesting point here. I will say that my college career, 12 years ago, at a major national liberal arts university allowed me to pursue my passions and interests, while seeking opportunities beyond the classroom (and not just in the social scene). For me, the treadmill issue isn’t necessarily the trip through a university, it’s the idea that you are allowed to “get off” once you have the degree. College definitely affords a myriad of possibilities and opens many doors. That very expensive piece of paper will continue to be a key to those doors until some major societal shifts occur. I have 13 years or so until my boys are facing decisions about college, but I want them to know that a degree doesn’t mean that the learning is (or should be) done.
I like your point about the value of the BA beyond the actual piece of paper. It was not until my third year of college that I really began to develop and intrinsic love of learning and that was definitely deepened by studying abroad at Oxford. I came back with a world view and an appreciation for all the educational opportunities that are available in the U.S. (I can’t imagine living in a country where women can’t go to college.)
By telling high school students they really don’t “need” a BA/BS, is doing them and us a true disservice. Getting the degree not only means gaining access to a greater economic bracket, but it also allows future parents the opportunity to give the same opportunities to their children, and so to future generations.
The NYT editorial cheapens higher education and tells high school students that it’s ok to be underachievers. What about the widening achievement gap between us and the rest of the world? We need to demand more of ourselves in order to compete globally.
As I tell my students, college teaches you how to learn and gives you options in terms of future careers. And as someone who has changed careers (writer/editor to teacher) I have continued my own education with a Master’s Degree in Teaching and I am also pursuing my second BA, in History this time, and my Ph.D. in English. I am the exception to the rule in terms of academic motivation, but I also know that with my education, I am more marketable and to future employers, my constant striving for more means I am driven and goal-oriented. I am not as the editorial implies we should be, someone who just does enough to get the job.
I think someone has been watching too much “Caddyshack.” In the words of Judge Snells, “the world needs ditch diggers too.” Too bad that’s all we seem capable of striving for.
Thanks for the comment, Christina. Feels to me like you’ve applied a pretty esoteric lens to this, however. You are more than an exception to the rule, I’d say. And yes, you are more marketable, no doubt. That is your good fortune. In my 22 years of teaching, I came across exactly one Rhodes Scholar/Oxford type of student. One. And he’s faring very well these days, no doubt. College is not a prerequisite to learning…passion is. You were lucky to have found a path that was fueled by a passion to learn. That is not the case for the vast majority.
No one is suggesting that my kids should strive to be ditch diggers. No one is suggesting that we don’t demand more of our kids. No one is suggesting that we celebrate mediocrity. All I and some others are suggesting is that in a world in which college is simply out of reach for many students for both financial and other reasons, why shouldn’t we prepare all students for some different options, namely those that, as the author says, show what they can actually do rather simply where they got a degree? The two are not mutually exclusive, I know, but we should treat them as if they can be.
What I see happening in many schools is the push for more specific knowledge at a younger age. For example “Project Lead the Way” has made its way to many suburban schools. The focus is on engineering schools. I’ve always been a little weary that asking 15 year olds to specialize their education at such an early age is a little short sighted. If someone knows exactly at the age of 15 what they want to do with the rest of their life then so be it. But for the most part I find an all-knowing 15 year old to be scary.
I agree with the above comments about the qualities attached to a liberal arts education. I ended up by chance at a great liberal arts school and I was pushed to actually “think”. The small classes, the rigorous expectations, and broad course requirements allowed me a great sampling of many disciplines. I’ve also noticed over the last few years that some of my best teachers are those who took a different route. They went back for a teaching degree later after spending times in other fields.
The NYT will publish anyone. Murray saw the error of his ways with the SAT, I wonder what else he will change his expertise on. He and Tom Friedman ought to get together and share bad metaphors and overpriced brandy. They can afford it, but we can’t in more ways than one.
Defining what we mean by education is important in this discussion and the future of higher ed. If by education you mean learning a set of skills that will allow you to perform at a higher level in the work force, ie. bookkeeper to accountant to CFO. Or, by education do you mean the “liberal arts” education that exposes the student to great minds and helps the student discover other ways of thinking and living.
I have to agree with Murray that a liberal arts education may be wasted time and money on some students. They are on the treadmill to learn a skill to get a better position in the work world. Does this have to be done at a large university at great expense that seems to be more interested in which bowl game they will be in?
A liberal arts education can be life long journey that does not have to confine itself to the walls of a campus.
I keep going back to Leigh Blackall’s presentation “Teaching is dead, long live learning.” http://leighblackall.wikispaces.com/Global+Summit
I loved going to school and I know there are others like me that do, though I did not complete college right out of high school. I do not have a problem encouraging students to go to college and to prepare for college. I think that if they choose not to go to college that is fine but that it should be their choice not to go to college, not because no college will take them.
My concern is we are creating an economy that provides fewer and fewer meaningful jobs for those without a college degree. I read or heard somewhere that back in the 1920’s roughly 25% of high school seniors went on to graduate from college. A statistic came out a month or so ago that said 30% of seniors, I think from the year 2000, that went on to college graduated from college. Considering that maybe 80% or so of seniors go on to begin college that would suggest we are not graduating many more students from college today than we were a century ago. That may be the fault of schools or it may be because only about 25% of the population has a serious interest in getting a college education. I do not know the answer to that one, though I believe most of my students could succeed in college if they wanted to. But to return to my point at the beginning of the paragraph I think the emphasis on college is a way for politicians to assuage the guilt they might feel about the economic opportunities (or lack of them) that they are providing.
But if we are now having difficulty providing enough jobs for all college graduates when only 25% or so of our students are getting degree where are the jobs going to come from to provide jobs for 80% or more of high school graduates if public schools were to have the kind of success they are being asked to strive for. And what becomes of the debts incurred by those that get a college degree and then discover the jobs that will enable them to pay of those debts may not exist.
I hope each of my students finds the career they love and derive satisfaction from doing, whether or not it requires a degree. I hope that every one of my students that wants a college degree is able to go on to pursue it and that the financial assistance necessary to get that degree is available (most of my students do not come from households wealthy enough to pay the cost of a college education).
I hope our schools provide our students the education they need to go to college if that is their inclination, but I also hope we create opportunities for those of our students whose interest do not lie in an academic direction.
Cordially,
J.D.
My only issue is that I know 20 somethings who have no idea of what to do with their lives, but they at least have a degree. Should we be telling the generation behind them that it is ok not to have a college degree and end up with a bunch of skill-less, uneducated young adults? Most don’t know what to do with their lives and many older adults still don’t, but they need to have exposure to the world of higher academia to develop the critical and analytical skill set necessary to figure out the rest of their lives.
My parents told me I was going to college and I went reluctantly at 16. It was a mistake to be so far from home at such a young age, but I learned a great deal about myself during that time. We have to remember to set limits for our children and provide direction for them when they are incapable of making such life-altering decisions; they have have no real life-experience in which to base their decisions. We need to guide them till they can guide themselves.
Hey J.D.,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, 80% of high school graduates go to college, but less than 60% of all kids graduate from high school! What about those kids? All I’m saying is that I think we can provide some different paths or visions regarding education for all kids. We’ll never get them all, but do we have to continue to see college as the only real path to academic success? Can’t there be ANY other measures?
I agree. Aside from some baseball caps one size rarely fits all. I think our culture likes single path solutions whether it be going to college or standardized testing.
Cordially,
J. D.
I have a different concern- why are US high schools providing so little for a student who does not plan to go to college? Why do we assume that everybody should be on an academic track and being prepared for college?
My impression is that in Europe there is far more attention paid to what we call “vocational education.” Few US students leave high school well-prepared to earn a good living.
My kids are 20 & 18 and I have ‘encouraged’ them to go onto higher ed. But neither of them know what they want to do and don;t want to incur a lot of debt doing a degree for the sake of it. Added to that, my son isn’t academic. But I believe society (and education) lets my kids down. We’ve realized to our cost that there is little support for kids like my son who isn’t academic but doesn’t want to become a mechanic. And what about the kids who would like to go to university but cannot afford it?Where do my kids go from here?
Will,
Murray brings up some interesting talking points. Certainly, a college degree isn’t a guarantee that a person is the best-suited employee, and it isn’t the only route to an education. However, is this really relevant? Reality is that a degree opens doors that those without a degree have slammed in their faces. Certainly, there are exceptions to everything. However, I preach to my children and to my former students that, while college isn’t the appropriate or best route for everyone, it adds credibility to the resume. This isn’t to imply that a university prepares students for life more effectively than life itself. It is simply the way things are. Look at the job classifieds–the most desirable expect a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, and often a master’s degree. Creating “their own credentials” is simply not sufficient in the eyes of employers. I plan to continue doing whatever I can to ensure that my own children fully know their passions and strengths and have the education and life experiences to make college an option for them. Should they opt for another life path, they will do so with my full support, but also with a warning that in doing so, they are choosing the narrower, more difficult path.
This is a subject which is sure to invoke passion in many teachers and parents! There is no one path fits all in education and there are more ways than one to become educated. We see it in the classrooms, those kids who don’t want to be there, it doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn, only that the system isn’t working for them. Additionally, many kids don’t get to know what they have a love for because of curriculum/assessment restraints. Encouraging kids to have experiences outside the classroom is definitely character forming and helping them shape their future paths. I have supported my son being overseas with his father (and therefore not following the school path he should be for his age ie choosing selective subjects etc) as I can see the wonderful benefits living in another culture is having on him and helping him grow as an individual: lessons that could not be learned in a classroom.
I feel a bit ambivalent about this topic because as a culture we do not value education overly much, we pay it a lot of lip service but we tend to look down on the educated. Look at our president-elect, an elitist because he is well educated where the term “elite” is a pejorative one. I think this attitude is a part of our heritage, the Puritans came to this country in part because they differed with the over educated theologians in the Church of England and were suspicious of the overly educated in general.
I feel torn because I realize that not everyone desires an education (often, unfortunately for the wrong reasons) and I do not believe people can be effectively educated without their consent. I also have students who derive great satisfaction from working with wood or machines.
In fact one of the downsides of the current testing environment is that some of these students who desire to receive training in a vocation cannot get into the vocational high schools because the focus on maintaining high state test scores (in Massachusetts ours is MCAS). Vocational schools only want students who have demonstrated academic achievement because they will be penalized if their school wide test scores drop. Many of the students who aspire to a vocation are not the strongest students, in large part because they are motivated by things other than academic and are as a result are refused admission by the vocational schools under pressure to increase test scores.
I believe elitism is a great thing, that it is good to be highly educated. I believe in encouraging students to aspire after a college degree because I do believe it opens doors. But I also believe that students are individual human beings who need to be encouraged to pursue their own unique interests that do not always include college.
Cordially,
J.D.
Here’s a different pov. I went to college as a non-trad. I was in my 30s, a single mom with two kids. College was my ticket out of poverty. When I was a junior or senior in high school, no one told me I could have gone to college for free because I was so poor. So I got married, had kids, ensured my lower class status.
Until I figured out how to get out of it.
The degree, that stupid piece of paper, guaranteed a 9-5 job with insurance and vacations.
You better believe I insisted that my children went to college. My aspie daughter has graduated from college, and is home with us trying to ride out this recession. My son, who is just not the academic type, is at a state school getting a communications degree, but also learning how to deal with different classes, with government and business procedures since he is in a fraternity (he’s currently the pledge master) and is the secretary of SGA. Experiences he would never have been exposed to without college. And he would never have gone to college if I hadn’t.
I think college is a requirement for most people if they want to stay out of poverty. I think you have to make the most of that experience, and college is more than the classes you attend. You have to stay involved (I started a union, my daughter helped start a club, my son is just involved with everything).
The involved part is almost more important than the studies. But you have to get that degree.
I agree with gminks comments: a degree is a way out of poverty. I have several friends who had dead-end non-secure jobs until they returned to uni as mature aged students and obtained a degree.
There’s two sides to this whole education debate: the skills that a degree education provides which make individuals more valuable in the workplace but of course, the academic path is not for everyone. As Will stated in his post, “… it is an open question as to whether or not my kids have more ways to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to be successful …”
I am sure everyone also knows someone who has been extremely successful without the piece of paper, although to be successful in most professions it is a must.
How is that going to change?
Wow . . . I thought I was keeping up with my blog reading during the holiday break! So many comments on a topic near and dear to my heart!! I must have missed it having been buried in trying to crank out my dissertation!! Talk about a tradition in education that begs for sense-making!
I think I have commented here before about the “treadmill” you refer to that high-performing high schools put kids on, supported by the parents who believe what is best for their kids is that they get into the ‘best’ colleges. Interestingly, it seems as though some of those top notch colleges DO provide their students with phenomenal opportunities and some very non-traditional opportunities (I heard from Gary S. last time about this). HOWEVER, those schools, I believe are few and far between and only the elite students or the children of parents who have the time and the knowledge to be sure their child does what they need to do to get in (being a gifted athlete helps, too!).
The dilemma I have had as a school administrator in one of these districts is how to advocate for all the other kids – the vast majority of kids who will end up at very traditional 4 year colleges and universities not really sure what they want to do – having NOT had a high school experience as Will describes. How do I work within the system to change the system to one where kids DO get to explore their interests and develop passions AND learn to enjoy learning for the sake of learning?? I did not do that as a parent for my own children . . . too busy being in the thick of trying to make a difference as a teacher in a traditional school system to be an advocate for them (though their passions for learning were fed at home … at the dinner table, on vacations, in discussions with the extended family, etc)!
Though my own undergrad experience was fine – good, basic education, some excellent teachers (most outside my area of study; I took as many opportunities as I could to expand my learning, so my ‘electives’ were outside education – yes, a self-motivated learner) – but mostly a means to an end – getting a teaching certificate so I could become a teacher. And I was a product of a private (Catholic) college-prep high school and a family in which attending college was not optional. Times have changed, though!
I keep thinking things HAVE to reach a breaking point where change – big, significant change – has to happen. BUT – I am really beginning to wonder. My dissertation topic is on superintendent preparation – not much change there for over 50 years in spite of lots and lots of rhetoric and discussion. Seems as though the university level is even more set in their ways than secondary education. So – where will the push come from to change? Will – it will be people like you and Chris L – people in the middle of all of this who also have young children whose futures are in need of a better system more than ever who will need to be the catalyst. And people like me? I am ready to do whatever I can in my small corner of the world to support you and work for change, too!!
Hey Sue,
So what’s real estate looking like in your district? ;0) I’ve been thinking breaking point for four years now. I’m still waiting. But at least some seem to be nurturing the conversations more than others.
Thanks for stopping by.
The failing economy, out of control college tuition, increasingly difficult-to-obtain school loans or massive debt after graduation contribute to a system that has to change NOW. In most places in this country it is the high income, well-educated families that push their high-achieving children into the best schools. BUT what happens when they get there?
I teach at a small private Friends school (grades 1-9) in the suburban Philadelphia, PA area. Most of our kids are smart, but dyslexic or ADD, or have language based challenges. College is not an option for many. As part of our curriculum, our students explore their passions, gifts and talents as a way to instill self-confidence, esteem and build expertise. A first grade student can be our resident expert on spiders. We use whatever resources a small, under-funded school can scrounge up. As Tech Director I try to make technology tools available as much as possible.
My son is eighteen, very dyslexic and very ADHD. He tried community college this past semester to major in digital sound engineering and dropped out of all his classes after 2 months. We did not expect him to excel and advised him not to take too many classes, but he did anyway. Now he feels like a failure, because of peer pressure and the expectations of our extended family. However, through our school, he has found that he can ice skate, act, play the guitar, sing, debate and interact most confidently and winningly with everyone (he could sell snow to the Eskimos). Ideally, he would love to work and play music at a church or school , but there is no chance to do that for any pay with no degree at his age. He is well-liked by everyone and is considered a role model. You can’t teach that at College.
Like the old saying goes . . . “That and a nickel ($5.00 for Starbucks) will get you a cup of coffee (a venti).”
However, even at my daughter’s public school, they have a new program that all incoming freshman participate in. They take a Myers-Briggs personality test and a career aptitude test to identify their interests. Then the program suggests what kind of courses they should consider registering for that relate to their interests. The cynic in me says this iprogram is not really to benefit the students so much as to boost the college enrollment and college graduation rates for the district. Not to mention, to improve attendance and dropout figures as well. Thank you NCLB! But it gets the students thinking about the future a bit.
On the adult end of life. I have never gotten my Master’s Degree due to marriage, kids and job demands. I have researched the requirements, but even at the graduate level for a Master’s in Instructional Technology there are courses that I deem a waste of my time. Technology changes so fast, you have to be self-taught to keep up. Enter online, competency-based learning. I hope it catches on. The only place I have seen it offered for Teacher Education is Western Governors University. There was a write up in Time magazine not too long ago. From their website:
The wave of the future?
Hey Jamey, Thanks so much for the comment. And thanks for that last description. That captures what I hope for my kids. And I know so much of this comes from the fact that I use very little from what I learned in college, and I think I’m more the norm than the exception unfortunately. I’d love to see the assessments that they give…would be a great conversation, I’m sure.
I may enroll soon to begin work on a Masters in Instructional Design, either that or I will try to get an admissions person to show me what they do. I’ll let you know.
Will,
I remain perplexed by your demonization of American higher education. Although imperfect, the American higher-ed system may be the best in the world and offer more diverse, richer, deeper and more meaningful learning opportunities than anywhere else in our society.
Four-year college IS too expensive and should be available for many more young people, not less.
I cannot tell if you are arguing for vocational education, less formal education, time off after high school or what?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve witnessed some of the best examples of teaching, learning and progressive education anywhere in American colleges and universities. College/university may be better for more children than say 7th grade.
Given scarce energy and resources, shouldn’t we prioritize our battles? It seems to me that higher-ed needs less immediate attention than the primary schools your kids currently attend.
There is certainly a good deal of evidence that early high school programs are great for all sorts of kids, even urban kids otherwise considered at-risk. In other words, kids who don’t traditionally “succeed in school” can earn high school credit while taking college courses for credit at the same time. This seems to contradict your hypothesis.
I know that blogging lends itself to argument by anecdote, so I have a few to share with you. I’m not speaking as an academic who fights daily to make my graduate school teaching reflect my belief in constructionism. I am speaking as a teacher, parent of three children who have attended three very different four year colleges and as someone who earned a Ph.D in another country.
1) I worked with incarcerated high-school age kids in the learning environment I built who had not attended school in years, were classified with a variety of learning disabilities and locked-up. Several left prison and went straight to college programs where they were happy and successful.
2) At least 2/3 of my own kids have experienced terrific educational experiences in very different liberal arts colleges – places where faculty members are renowned experts AND love teaching my child.
I’m not sure if you’re painting all colleges with the same brush or are aware at how different they can be from one another.
3) I am NOT talking about the outrageous and wrong-headed weeding-out process students endure prior to college admissions. America is blessed to have lots of higher-ed opportunities and there is almost always a place for every interested student. Schools do a great disservice by drilling kids to get into UC Berkeley so they can have classes of 1,800 and never meet a professor when lots of better alternatives exist.
4) Our system allows for second, third and fifth chances. Ask Sarah Palin or me. I HATED K-12! I spent 7.5 years full-time earning a BA and don’t regret a second of it. You probably had better SAT scores than I did, but I still enjoyed remarkable learning adventures at three different colleges and went on to work with some of the greatest educators of the 20th Century before earning a Ph.D.
It seems to me like colleges and universities, at least the good ones (and there are many) epitomize all of the virtues of personal learning communities.
Hello Gary,
I know you have expressed similar sentiments previously and I do not disagree with you about some of your points!
#1. “It seems to me that higher-ed needs less immediate attention than the primary schools your kids currently attend.” Yes, what goes on in many primary schools is marginal, at best. However, the reasons for that are so complex – structure of the entire system of public schools, constraints as a result of NCLB, etc. AND – the teachers and administrators – who are products of higher ed. It is a system problem that will require a system change in many, many ways. And the lack of accountability on all fronts (do not think NCLB has achieved that) I believe is a result of a lack of common vision of what education should be/do for all kids.
#2.”I’ve witnessed some of the best examples of teaching, learning and progressive education anywhere in American colleges and universities. College/university may be better for more children than say 7th grade.” I, too, had some excellent experiences in my education in undergrad (at Baylor University), but mostly it was an individual professor and his/her belief and approach towards the construction of valuable learning experiences. I had the same experience in high school. The common factor in those 2 experiences? They were private schools. Perhaps that is not significant, but I work in the public school system so I can help shape a better system for the many kids who cannot attend a private school. In addition, I took advantage of any opportunity I could to learn – a quality I got from coming from some influential teachers early on and a home environment that stressed learning on various fronts – music, art, etc.
My kids also disliked (detested in one case) high school and enjoyed college much, much more. However, they were not set-up to navigate their college experience so they got the type of education they needed to unearth their passion; to help them determine what to do in their future. That is not entirely true of my daughter (again, a grad of a private college), but certainly of my son – very bright, very ADHD, very non-conforming. Though it may not be fair to put that on the education system and not on his parents – it was frustrating to see him floundering when even choosing a college. His high school guidance counselor advised him to go to Community college – he was not “college material;” he was “unmotivated” and lazy. Yet, he got through college – almost – and lacks 1 course for his degree. He has attempted it 2 times – College Algebra of all things (and his mother a former math teacher!!). The issue – he sees no relevance, no meaning in it. Attach it to physics – he gets it, no problem. Teach it in isolation – he just cannot make himself stick to it to get through. His last prof begged him to take it again with her – said she knew she could get him through. But, he just ends up feeling stupid and has no tolerance for that. All the talk in the world about just jumping through the hoop has not helped. Now – 2 years later – he is headed back to school. This time to get a teaching degree!! Yet – where he will attend – mediocre at best. The amount of time and money invested is alarming – but I will support him however I can to find his way to uncovering what it is that will give him meaning and a future. Not so sure that would happen if I were not an educator!
So the question – how do we make more of education more meaningful and more relevant to more kids? By the way, I checked out your syllabus – I would LOVE to enroll . . . but have promised my family after this dissertation is finished, no more courses – well, I think I said no more degrees!!
Hey Gary,
Figured you’d get back here at some point. ;0)
How am I demonizing college? If my kids want to go and it seems to be their best option, great. What I’m agreeing with, however, is the idea that so much weight should be placed on the credential instead of the ability. And that maybe we should think about ways of helping kids understand how they can cobble together their own education, with college courses being a part of that I would think, but where at the end they build their own credential that really demonstrates knowledge, not simply being able to do the work.
My college experience did not epitomize all of the virtues of personal learning communities. Maybe that was the school I attended, my demeanor, whatever. And I know that I could not have become a teacher without the traditional credential, and that will probably be the case for my kids too. I just think we need to challenge the thinking that a degree, which hardly anyone really looks at in terms of what you can do, should hold sway the way it does.
Hope you’re not mad at me. I’m genuinely perplexed by college being the target of so much concern. As I’ve said before, I think there are much bigger fish to fry.
If you take a look at the syllabus for my Learning and Technology Course, you’ll see that I’m quite comfortable teaching in ways that accentuate people’s strengths and interests while fulfilling my obligation to create opportunities they may not have realized existed on their own. That’s why they employ me – to create opportunities.
Syllabus – http://stager.org/2008/omaet/
Theory behind it – http://stager.org/articles/72_Stager.pdf
My college experience wasn’t idyllic either, but that hardly negates the benefits of higher education or negates our desire for all kids to have the widest, deepest, richest array of learning opportunities possible – all kids – something people like Charles Murray would like to predetermine.
We can argue about teacher credentials some other time. It’s a lousy system better, but it’s the best of bad options.
I need to drive home from Kinko’s now. It’s 4:40 AM and I came here to work because the net is down at home.
Happy New Year!!!!!
Demonization is pretty rich, don’t you think? I agree that university experience is more than just classes and teachers. It is a place where opportunities are supposed to abound. It is supposed to be a rich environment where you can find your way to more than just a degree. That is what higher ed does that online only dreams of. 3-D, face-to-face learning is so much richer and deeper than what we have online. It pains me to say that, but it is true. I don’t care how massively online or competency-based you get, it it the live folk who make university so alive no matter where you are. It is the expense that is killing the university.
Hey Terry…I totally agree in terms of F2F being an important part of teaching and mentoring. And I’m not saying that I want my kids to do all of their work online or in virtual spaces. I fully expect them to take college courses that are meaningful and helpful to their studies. I’m less convinced these days, however, that the best education is a four-year program at one institution that delivers a degree that most likely doesn’t encompass any of the other possible learning scenarios that are out there right now.
When you say most likely doesn’t encompass ANY of the other possible learning scenarios, what are you talking about?
It’s often said that college is wasted on the young because they fail to take advantage of the plethora of learning opportunities available on campus (and now online too).
Where is this narrow and desolate higher-ed experience you write about?
I’m thinking, perhaps naivly, that this web 2.0 shift in the approach to knowledge acquisition, I see, is addressing learning in the k-12 system but should and will extend into the area of post secondary education. If we, in the public school system, can embrace this approach to learning we will be creating a learner that has a passion for their interests. This will give them the tools to continue with their learning in life be it in an educational system that continues to follow this web 2.0 model or their own personal goals. In all arenas I believe that an individual needs to carry more weight than any degree or test score in their job search. How much weight does an employer put on an individual as oppossed to their “credentials”?
Some things to keep in mind.
The average earnings (US) of someone with no HS diploma is under $19,000. For one with a HS diploma: $28,000, for one with a bachelor’s $51,000, and for someone with a postgraduate degree $75,000. Consider that when you decide to encourage or discourage your kids to go and/or prepare for college.
I can’t remember where I saw this statistic, but the differences in quality within postsecondary institutions was substantially greater than the differences in quality between institutions. It matters a lot less which institution one goes to, and more that one chooses the best that that institution has to offer. This seems to support that there is less need to push HS students through an AP curriculum, but just make sure that they get a good well-rounded education and learn how to learn.
Enrollments in for-profit undergraduate schools are growing at a 20% annual pace, and at for-profit graduate schools at 28% (the latter from a very small base) for the last 12 years. Public and not-for-profit enrollments have been close to flat. Why? One reason could be the focus by the for-profits on providing job skills. What else are they doing right?
Practically, yes, of course you’re right that more education results in higher salary. But you’re missing the whole point: is that because higher ed experience is such a great indicator of skills?
I guess we’re asking whether someone with a bachelors does work valued at over 2x that of someone with a diploma, or whether jobs just have gotten in the habit of offering 2x more because it’s easier than actually reading resumes and looking at portfolios.
Hey Will,
You make some really good points about how we have come to define success in terms of a liberal arts education. It often seems like a great deal of the content of which is forgotten a few minutes after a degree is conferred (think Father Guido Sarducci’s 5 minute university bit). It also sounds a lot like what Ken Robinson is arguing in his latest book: A Whole New Mind — That we have lost the idea of passion, curiosity, and creativity that was so prevalent in the Renaissance in favor of Enlightenment thinking. It had obvious and tremendous benefits, but it made the definition of learning a much more narrow and rigid thing.
To loosely paraphrase Tom Friedman in The World is Flat:
“There is no more powerful educational tool than a curious child.”
I do think that we need to sometimes learn things that we might not be intrinsically interested in, but I also think that the inherent and obvious shortcomings of the current model are becoming more and more clear and will eventually force us to re-evaluate some very old and deeply held assumptions.
Happy New Year!
Pick up the book – “The Sabre Tooth Curriculum”. It’s OLD, but still works today. Here’s a brief synopsis from Wikipedia:
Published in 1936, The Saber Tooth Curriculum is satirical commentary explaining how unexamined traditions of schooling can result in resisting needed changes (Guthrie 169). He [Harold R.W. Benjamin] believed education needs to be responsive to the emerging needs of the life experience and he felt education in his time was sticking to teachings of old rather than of present times.
A college degree is a nebulous indicator of any sort of ability. At best, it consistently means “this person was able to scrounge up $40k+ for education, one way or another”. Anything beyond that is a completely unreliable assumption.
It would make more sense for jobs to rely on portfolios or actually resume assessments to see what a person is actually capable of. When automizing and computerizing society, we replaced the process of carefully matching people with appropriate jobs with a somewhat automatic matching criteria A, B and C with automatic placement in job X.
In general, society would benefit a lot from renewing effort in hiring decisions. Hiring the wrong person for a job (and not having a good way to identify this and fix the problem) is one of the most expensive mistakes a company can make. Education does it all the time, by necessity: it’s near impossible to know whether an inexperienced teacher will cut the mustard, and we don’t have good ways of saying “it’s just not working out, we’re going to have to let you go.”
Issues with requiring degrees for jobs that shouldn’t are just fallout from the core problem: weak hiring practices.
I really enjoyed reading this post and the comments. I certainly agree that having time in between high school and college is the way to go. I did not have that time and went straight into college, and while I had an amazing experience and again with my master’s, I sometimes regret that I chose other avenues instead of studying abroad, or volunteering, or traveling; because now I don’t have the time or the flexibility to go and do that. I still would have received an education, although a different kind of education, but I believe it would have prepared me better for future events. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this matter!
I wish there was some way schools could actually prepare students for the world. I have been out of college for less than two years, and I have to say that precious little in either college or high school had anything to do with the fast-paced online world I find myself in. I’ve learned more in the year after college than I did in the four years I was there.
It frustrates me, because it feels like the solution is on the tip of society’s tongue, that education could meet a lot more needs…I just don’t know exactly what would need to change. Intuition tells me it has something to do with letting students set the pace and learn what excites them most, with instructors and materials eager to help them. I just don’t know how to get there.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. It resonated with me in several ways.
As my 3.5-year-old son creeps toward school age, I think about these issues more and more frequently, even though college is a long way off (at least from his perspective!). Right now he’s in a fabulous daycare/preschool that really lets him marinate in whatever he’s interested in, which right now means drawing, painting, sculpting PlayDoh, imaginative play, and cutting anything he can get his hands on into tiny little pieces.
I worry that as early as kindergarten he will be forced into a paradigm of schooling with which I am increasingly uncomfortable, even though–with the exception of three wonderful years of my undergrad education (at the fabulous Grinnell College)–I am product of public schools and my parents and much of my extended family are or were public school teachers and administrators. I recognize that public schools are different now in this age of high-stakes testing (I graduated from high school in 1993), and that I benefited from being tracked into gifted classes in grades 1-12, so I know I received a much better public school education than did many of the students who graduated from high school more recently.
I wish my husband and I could afford to work less (and maybe we could, once we stop paying for daycare) so that we could at least partly homeschool/unschool our son. It makes me cringe that as a white, middle-class kid, he’s going to be tracked so stringently–as I was–into college prep.
I almost dropped out of college numerous times, even though I excelled in most of my classes. (I finally hit my stride my junior year at Grinnell, which doesn’t have general education requirements.) And now, almost by accident (because I wasn’t sure what else to do) I have a Ph.D. But my husband barely finished high school and is just brilliant. On the one hand, watching my husband, who is a graphic artist and a writer, create wonderful things is inspiring to me when I think about my son’s future, as it offers hope that my son needn’t go through so many years of college if it doesn’t interest him. At the same time, I have seen my husband run up against professional/career barriers when prospective employers require college degrees.
Laura Blankenship hosted a very interesting and broad-ranging podcast conversation yesterday on the issue of credentials inside higher ed institutions and the role of people inside and outside institutions in education, schooling, and unschooling. You might check it out.