Is High School as Bad as All That?
washingtonpost.com
Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page B02
For some, it's a steppingstone to success, for others, a footpath to failure. Almost everyone has strong feelings about high school, the quintessential teenage American institution. But not many would go so far as Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates, who recently delivered a major speech declaring high school to be "obsolete." Not only does the system fail to prepare our kids for the future, he said, but it shortchanges American society by paving the way to success for the privileged upper third of American teens and leaving the rest, mostly lower-income and minority kids, in the dust. Outlook invited six college students who attended public high schools to assess Gates's remarks in an online forum. Excerpts of their discussion:
PARTICIPANTS
DAKARAI AARONS, 21
Senior, University of Nebraska; graduate of DuVal High School in Prince George's County.
NATE BIEHL, 26
Senior, University of Montana; graduate of public high school in Helena, Mont.
NATHAN QAZI, 19
Freshman, Northern Virginia Community College; received his GED after attending Thomas Edison and West Potomac high schools in Fairfax County.
JUSTIN SCHNEIDER, 22
Senior, American University; graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City.
RHASHEEMA A. SWEETING, 21
Senior at Howard University; graduate of Woodside High School in Woodside, Calif.
LANA WILSON, 21
Senior at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.; graduate of Lakeland High School in Kirkland, Wash.
RHASHEEMA: I remember when one of my career advisers told me of the unspoken tracks at my high school: There was the definitely-going-to-college group, the probably-won't-go-to-college group and the group of troublemakers whom they rush through the system without helping. I knew too many who fell into the troublemaker category. I saw those students trying semester after semester to schedule appointments with our advisers, who always seemed to be busy. But when I needed to talk to my adviser, I could walk right in.
DAKARAI: I think there are too many students with the mentality that they can't do much because they are being taught by society and even by a number of their teachers that they won't amount to much and shouldn't expect much of themselves. The way high schools are set up now, there are students of two mindsets: those who are driven and motivated and plan to attend college, and those who go through the motions to get out of high school.
LANA: There was a clear division between college-bound and non-college-bound students at my high school, too. The problem, as Dakarai mentioned, is that some students are discriminated against from an early age because their teachers basically tell them they won't amount to much. I went to public school outside Seattle, and there it worked like this: In sixth grade, we all took a math placement test. Depending on the results of this one-page, 20-minute arithmetic test, we were assigned to one of three levels of math classes in junior high. Then, when we signed up for our seventh-grade classes, the students in the upper-level math class would usually sign up for the honors humanities and science classes as well, and those in lower-level math classes would take non-honors classes. A stupid sixth-grade math test basically told all of these 12-year-olds who was good at school and who wasn't. Once you're put in non-honors classes from this early age, it's basically impossible to get into honors classes anytime in the future.
RHASHEEMA: My non-college-bound peers certainly seemed to have this mindset that because they weren't in the advanced/honors courses, they had no chance at college.
DAKARAI: Quite a few people I knew dropped out because high school seemed pointless to them, and all the images and people around them reinforced the perception that they were inferior and would never amount to anything. They simply fulfilled the prophecy.
JUSTIN: My time in high school taught me how bad the design behind a system can be. Stuyvesant High School was a specialized math/science school, and it was a factory for producing college applicants. It was open to any student in the NYC public school system, as long as they scored high enough on an entrance exam. Effectively, though, the weeding out of the academic elite was done before high school even started. The school was supposed to represent the best and brightest of all the city's students, but I think there were no more than eight African American students in the school. It definitely was an example of how the system was skewed. A relatively small group of mostly white and Asian students were gathered together and pushed to succeed no matter the cost. Other groups weren't even given the opportunity.
NATHAN: I don't know about you guys, but at my high schools, what the faculty and administration emphasized to students was: "Take honors courses or you will be scanning fruit for the rest of your life." My second high school, West Potomac, seemed more interested in its overall reputation (having more honors students and higher AP scores) than in helping out the individual student. The Washington Post comes out with this list of the top honors programs; I remember the administration gloating when West Potomac made it high on the list. The school seemed most interested in students taking their advanced courses, leaving students who take "regular" classes behind.
JUSTIN: Your fruit-scanning analogy makes me think that the schools might be more aware of the college/non-college split than we think, that they're based on a model where some people go to college and some go to McDonald's. Maybe they just don't see that as a problem.
NATHAN: Justin, isn't that idiotic? Do we really want the people who run our schools to think like that? I'd rather have them think, as Gates urges, that all of their students should go to college and earn degrees. Not all unsuccessful people are stupid. There are a lot of intelligent bus drivers, postal carriers, Starbucks employees, etc., I've met over the years who just haven't received the right guidance. Not all successful people are smart. Just look at Paris Hilton. We shouldn't classify people into "college/non-college" groups.
RHASHEEMA: I have to say I don't like the idea of everyone going to college. It's just not possible and it would be a detriment to our economy. If every high school student went to college, the value of obtaining a degree would be nil. But I strongly agree that more students should be given the chance instead of being placed in guaranteed-fail systems.
JUSTIN: I agree that one of the problems with encouraging high school students to aim for college is that prospects after college may not be as encouraging as they could be. If post-secondary education is required to support a family, as Gates said in his speech, it's partly because there's a glut of degrees on the job market. BAs are necessary for jobs that high school students were qualified for just a few decades ago. My girlfriend was working retail for a while with co-workers who had done graduate work in her specific field. High schools need not only to provide their students better access to colleges, but also give them the opportunity to succeed outside the academic community.
DAKARAI: I think the push doesn't necessarily need to be to send everyone to college, but to encourage and challenge all students to live up to their abilities, whether they are destined for a life in the corporate world or not. In Prince George's County, our school system slogan used to be QUEST -- a quality education for every student. I was blessed not only to have a family that pushed me to excel, but also to run into a few good teachers who did the same along the way. But I also ran into too many people who had low expectations for what students could do. I remember being pulled into the office with a handful of other students who were in the top 10 percent of our class and having the guidance counselor tell us that perhaps we could go to the local community college. Mind you, this was after we had just gotten back our results showing we'd done well on the PSAT. We were a bunch of bright, academically talented black students. I think her perception of us as inferior clouded her judgment.
RHASHEEMA: I think about my sister who is graduating from high school in Fremont, Calif. Her guidance counselors have been virtually useless and when she has tried to seek their advice, they have recommended community colleges. That seems to be all they know about. Her teachers have been a bit more supportive, but everything she knows about college has come from outside of her high school. Most of her friends aspire to attend the local community college or nearby state school. The numbers show that very few students who graduate from her high school go on to attend four-year institutions.
NATE: I had the opposite problem. Despite my lack of interest in school, everyone constantly told me that I was destined for great things, just as soon as I started "living up to my potential." No one ever told me that I wasn't meant for college, or that I couldn't learn. When I blew off homework, teachers still passed me at the end of the semester. When I blew off college applications because I couldn't pick a direction in life, my parents and guidance counselors did them for me. It didn't matter how much effort I did or did not put in, I was still going to get by.
So when Mr. Gates says, "For the sake of our young people and everyone who will depend on them -- we must stop rationing education in America," I respectfully disagree. Maybe the answer is to start rationing education in America. Maybe we should start handing a high school education only to those who are willing to earn it. I should have been thrown out of the way so that students who were willing to earn their right to smaller classrooms and better facilities could be rewarded with them.
JUSTIN: The thing is, Nate, I think Gates is differentiating between "going to high school" and "getting a high school education." It sounds like you did the former because no one made sure that you did the latter. Having a high school diploma doesn't work unless an education went with it. I mean, would you stop teaching kids after junior high? What kind of skills would they have then? The real goal should be to make students want to finish, not make the divide in the system worse by withholding high school from those who don't see where it will take them.
NATHAN: I thought my high school classes were a complete and utter waste of time. In the advanced courses I took, my classmates and I were bored beyond belief. I remember my 11th-grade English class, where the kid sitting to the left of me was playing his Game Boy Advance, the kid sitting to the right of me was sleeping, and the two girls sitting in front of me were gossiping about their friends' ex-boyfriends. The saddest thing: The teacher was too tired to notice.
JUSTIN: Ain't that the truth. I used to get upset at the other students in my classes for not doing the readings -- more so than the teacher, sometimes.
LANA: As an upper-income white student, I was continually frustrated by high school, too, for many reasons, but I think they're trivial in comparison to why minority and low-income kids would be frustrated by high school. I hated the cliques, the endless assemblies, the frequent busy work, and the incompetent teachers who were only faculty members because they were also the football coaches. Most of all, I hated the constant overwhelming pressure and stress to do well and work hard all the time.
JUSTIN: I know what you mean. One of my friends (unknowingly quoting someone more famous and more dead) said that there were only two kinds of students at Stuy -- happy, and smart. The smart group included most of the dropouts. When we complained about the school, the happy group looked at us like we were aliens. But the pressure is intense. There's this sense that if you get bad grades your parents will stop loving you. Stuyvesant had an outdoor balcony kind of thing at the cafeteria, but you weren't allowed to go out there because no one would insure the school against kids jumping. Far too many people had serious emotional problems, and the ones who didn't faked it for the attention. There were suicide attempts, some more serious than others. Casual and experimental drug use becoming addiction.
RHASHEEMA: High school is such a tenuous in-between period riddled with the challenges of fitting in, potentially screwing up the rest of your life and growing up at the same time. That's really a lot to deal with and I think quite frankly not everyone is willing to stick it out.
LANA: I think this is a really important point. Rarely do teenagers know exactly where they're going in life, so education is not only important but absolutely necessary to inform them about the world and show them all of the opportunities available (ideally speaking). Students shouldn't have to spend their high school years studying and working nonstop because they're afraid that not doing so would ruin their future, and minority students shouldn't have to work 10 times as hard to get to the same place. Teenagers aren't adults yet. High school is almost a part of childhood, and when Gates says that students "have to" always be doing "rigorous work" in high school, I find it almost frightening. This is one of the reasons that so many people hate high school -- learning is seen as tedious "work" instead of something interesting and enjoyable.
Rather than emphasizing the importance of making students work as hard as possible throughout high school, I think Gates should focus more on making the system flexible enough to fuel the interests of students who are always more diverse than schools account for, whether in terms of race, learning style, or virtually any other aspect of their identity.
NATE: Right. Educators should make high school a great place to be, and then make students work to stay in.
LANA: I think there are a lot of changes that could be made to public high schools that would benefit everyone. Any high school student would like to learn about things that they find interesting and relevant, as Gates urges. Students should all be challenged, everyone should get equal opportunities. But I think that Gates's ultimate goal of churning out competitive, hard-working technology workers could create school systems that are even more stressful and less accepting of individuality than they are today.
And one final note: I grew up in a suburb of Seattle right by the Microsoft headquarters, and all of my friends who dropped out of high school did so in order to work for Microsoft because they could make huge amounts of money without needing a GED! I agree with the general sentiment of Gates's speech, but maybe he should look into the practices of his own company before making this kind of an argument so that he doesn't seem so hypocritical.
JUSTIN: Does that make him hypocritical? The fact that high school wouldn't have prepared them for what they wanted to do goes a ways toward proving his point, I would think.
Authors' e-mails:dakarai_aarons@hotmail.com, nathanqazi@msn.com, biz_sheema@yahoo.com |
