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Our high school system doesn’t prepare students for college at all because the way high school works here (in America) clearly isn’t meant to prepare students f

Our high school system doesn’t prepare students for college at all because the way high school works here (in America) clearly isn’t meant to prepare students for college. You have to go to high school. There are compulsory attendance laws everywhere. You don’t have to go to college. It’s a choice to be there. College professors expect students to have their own motivation, their own ability to study things, and so in. High school teachers have to deal with the fact that very often a very large percentage of our students would simply rather not come to school than be there. And if you just let them fail, you get everybody from the principal to parents to society at large, pointing their fingers at you as the problem. So we can’t approach instruction with any expectation that students will care, try, stay awake, or do anything other than show up in class. (And I live in a district with really profound truancy problems because our district attorney doesn’t give a shit and never holds truancy court, so I can’t even expect students to show up on a regular basis.) But everyone then pointed us like we are failing somehow to prepare students for college. I put it in reverse: colleges are failing to understand what high schools deal with and what we have to do in response. We are the ones who have laws constraining what we can and can’t do (especially in public school), how we have to approach certain things, and even what content we have to teach. (I am required by law, for example, to teach the content standards promulgated by the state. If I wander outside my standards, that’s good cause for being fired. Now, fortunately, I teach a subject where our standards are extremely broad and loose, so I can fit almost anything under them. But history is a core subject that isn’t a focus of testing regimes, so they generally ignore us.) By the way, I’m not saying it’s a good thing that high schools don’t prepare students for college. But literally the response from our administration when a faculty member points out that our policies aren’t helping prepare students for college is that “not all our students will go to college.” Maybe half-ish of our students do.

groby_b 3y ago
Note that I point to the education system. I know a lot of teachers bend over backwards to make sure their students learn something. (Often even at personal cost, because heaven forbid we give them or students decent supplies) We as a society just don't seem to give a damn about that outcome. (Cf teacher salaries, the truancy issue you mention, standardized testing, content standards as strict prescription instead of a minimum,....) And you're right, maybe colleges need to adapt to that reality as well. Or maybe there's a step missing between high school and college. But, again, we don't seem to particularly care about fixing that as a society.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  I like the idea that there’s a step missing in between. Like, after high school, you spend a year minimum doing college prep at some sort of extended school. Or you could test out of it and enter college immediately (if, say, you went to a college-prep-type high school). I don’t know who would fund it and that’s half the battle, but it would be miles better than what we do right now. Part of the issue with public schools right now is that we aren’t really just education anymore. We’re like a social service agency. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t be but people need to understand that what we do is so much more than just content. Every day last week, I was in the offices of the guidance counselors, or our behavioral interventionist, because kids had come to talk to me privately about different struggles they’re having (all mental health-related in one way or another). Whether it was anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or not being able to get through the day without smoking weed because of how bad they feel. Who else is going to help these kids deal with that? They don’t have community resources to help them, and they often don’t tell anyone at home about it. And that’s just extra stuff on top of what every normal teenager goes through during their development. I’ve had to have so many conversations with boys AND girls this year about using protection if they’re having sex that it’s terrifying, because of the shit I hear. But people on the outside just see me as, like, giving history assignments.

groby_b 3y ago

Note that I point to the education system. I know a lot of teachers bend over backwards to make sure their students learn something. (Often even at personal cost, because heaven forbid we give them or students decent supplies) We as a society just don't seem to give a damn about that outcome. (Cf teacher salaries, the truancy issue you mention, standardized testing, content standards as strict prescription instead of a minimum,....) And you're right, maybe colleges need to adapt to that reality as well. Or maybe there's a step missing between high school and college. But, again, we don't seem to particularly care about fixing that as a society.

dmvdoug 3y ago
I like the idea that there’s a step missing in between. Like, after high school, you spend a year minimum doing college prep at some sort of extended school. Or you could test out of it and enter college immediately (if, say, you went to a college-prep-type high school). I don’t know who would fund it and that’s half the battle, but it would be miles better than what we do right now. Part of the issue with public schools right now is that we aren’t really just education anymore. We’re like a social service agency. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t be but people need to understand that what we do is so much more than just content. Every day last week, I was in the offices of the guidance counselors, or our behavioral interventionist, because kids had come to talk to me privately about different struggles they’re having (all mental health-related in one way or another). Whether it was anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or not being able to get through the day without smoking weed because of how bad they feel. Who else is going to help these kids deal with that? They don’t have community resources to help them, and they often don’t tell anyone at home about it. And that’s just extra stuff on top of what every normal teenager goes through during their development. I’ve had to have so many conversations with boys AND girls this year about using protection if they’re having sex that it’s terrifying, because of the shit I hear. But people on the outside just see me as, like, giving history assignments.