College for all? Not quite!

I ran into a former student at my favorite coffee place recently. I had him in a 7th grade computer class about four years ago. He wasn’t a standout, someone I’d instantly remember, but I nice enough kid, now a junior in high school. We have two big high schools and a continuation school in our town. I asked how he was doing in school and what he liked, disliked, the usual. He said he was doing home school now, trying to finish up his junior and senior year, this year. I asked him what was the rush. I told him I liked high school, at least the social life, sports and my elective classes, that it was a good time in my life. Not so for him, he was sick and tired of the regular classes and the auto shop class he’d been looking forward to for a long time was abandoned by the school district his freshman year. Now he just wanted to get his diploma and go on to the local junior college and get into their heavy equipment operator’s program.

Like so many kids his age and aptitude high school has very little to offer. For the last six years all he has heard at school is what he needs to do to prepare for a four-year college program. Not one counselor has ever addressed his needs, or more importantly valued what is important to him. I’ve had five kids of my own go through the local schools. High school orientations have not changed much since I went to high school. The typical push is for preparation for entrance to a four-year college, but it is implied that if you really want to excel, you should push for the university requirements. Don’t even mention the local junior college, that’s for losers, not in so many words, but the implication is clear enough.

However, only sixty-two percent of graduating seniors go on to college. The system caters to that sixty-two percent as if it were one hundred percent. What about the other thirty-eight percent? Why should they be branded losers by the system? It seems as though high school counselors are only doing sixty-two percent of their job. A college education does not guarantee a successful, rewarding career. College is not the only path to a successful rewarding career. There are many career opportunities in the trades, jobs that provide a great income, a chance to work out of doors and job satisfaction. Yet these are not valued, of course you have to consider the folks in charge, they’re all college educated and a little myopic.

The point is that alternative career paths should be available, promoted and honored as the traditional college route. A student should not be made to feel inferior because his goal in life is to be a heavy equipment operator, or a plumber like his uncle, or a construction worker like his dad. Someone has to build the little offices that are so sought after as a workplace. Someone has to bulldoze the roads to allow the college educated office worker to get to work. Someone has to build the plumbing infrastructure and keep it working so all of us college-educated folks don’t drown in our own refuse. This seems so obvious, yet school districts continue place all of the emphasis on academics, while continuing to cut exploratory elective programs.

In this so-called era of “No Child Left Behind” it might be wise to acknowledge the thirty-eight percent of the population that is not going to college. They could use a little counseling too.