Apparently the easiest way to rile up a roomful of high-school-going-on-college kids is to suggest that their current college experience is the educational equivalent of the clearance rack at K-Mart. Ok, I didn't actually say that (but only because I didn't think of it at the time). I think they got the gist, though.


I know, I know. Sometimes I just can't resist.


In particular, I can't resist offering my blunt opinion (asked-for or otherwise) when the subject of college courses in high school comes up. (In fact, since I started writing this post, I had yet another conversation--this time with a parent--on the topic.) And since I didn't get to finish my rant in the aforementioned situation with the high schoolers (a certain someone's mother tactfully changed the subject), you get to be on the receiving end of all my opinions.


See, our town's public high school apparently has a program where students can start attending the nearby community college essentially for free during high school--even going so far as to allow them to attend two full years at the CC and earn an Associate's degree at the same time they receive their high school diploma.

Great, huh? High school kids love it, parents love it... and why not? Free college, more access to higher education, a challenge for higher-achieving students and all that, right? The idea is sweeping through the community--it gets mentioned almost every time I talk to high school students or parents about college. And my own private high school is dabbling in the trend with a few similar classes on our campus.

Except, here's the thing: imagine for a moment that you teach fifth grade. Then imagine that your principal has a brilliant idea; he decides that a few of the second graders really need a challenge--they're beyond the rest of their class, so he sends them to you. If, after a few months, those second graders are doing pretty well in your class and really enjoying themselves and learning a lot, you probably shouldn't be patting yourself on the back. You should be rudely awakening to the fact that your class is far too easy for fifth graders.


This is the problem that nobody seems to be talking about (at least among the students and parents that I meet)--the more high school students that take college classes, the more college becomes a glorified high school. Now the truth is, as some of you know, I teach a couple of these college credit classes at my high school. And though I try as hard as I can to make the classes rigorous and challenging (and I do think it is valuable curriculum, certainly*), I have no illusions that I'm providing anything like the experience my students would get if they took the class as freshmen at a four-year college or university.

In reality, high school students, even the bright ones, aren't developmentally ready to think at the level of a college class (particularly the ones that I teach--which involve critical reading, thinking, and writing). They need that extra year or two to grow and develop before they enter a college environment. Moreover, the ideologically homogenous nature of a Christian school means that they will not encounter any sincere proponents of opposing viewpoints in class discussion**. Try as I might to play the devil's advocate, it's not the same. And, as a high school teacher, I still have to censor somewhat the material that I present to them because they are still in high school. That's just the reality of a high school classroom.***

But what a lot of kids are looking for is just something more challenging than their current high school classes--which I totally get. I'm all for advanced classes in high school so that bright kids can be challenged and be more prepared for college when they get there. They used to call these AP classes, honors, or college prep, and it helped universities distinguish the serious, committed students from the rest. College credit classes have an entirely different mindset. Whereas an honors class implies that the student wants to learn above and beyond the typical curriculum, a college credit class invites the student simply to get his or her education over and done with as soon as possible.

At this point you may be asking, why would colleges be willing to dumb down their curriculum to accommodate high schoolers? (This is an easy one.) It starts with "M" and ends with "oney." And that seems to be the primary motivation for everyone who champions these programs. Parents are sold on it because they're afraid of the giant monster that is college tuition. It's great for (some****) employers because you're bringing kids into the workforce at an earlier and earlier age. It's great for the government because those workers can start paying taxes earlier (and they used up less of the education budget on the way). And it's great for Disney and Pepsi and Verizon because those workers are less educated and therefore more susceptible to ads telling them how to spend all that money they're making.


Here's who it's not good for:

The kid: They're cheated out of a well-rounded, quality education in order to join the 9 to 5 assembly line as soon as possible. They lose the full experience of college as a transition to adulthood--breaking away from parents, meeting people outside of their usual community, encountering different viewpoints, discovering new interests, changing their minds a million times about what they want to be... so much of that happens in the first two years at a four-year college.*****

Democracy: Instead of educating citizens to be fully knowledgeable and engaged with the society around them so they can exercise their rights and freedoms--such as voting, serving jury duty, carrying firearms, raising children, and more--with wisdom and discernment, we focus on "career training," as if the only thing education is good for is producing workers who have no existence outside of their cubicle.

Art and Culture: There's an excellent article in Harpers this month about the denigration of the humanities in our school system (you can borrow it from me if you want). If it's not directly applicable to a job setting, no one seems to be interested any more. But humans are more than their jobs! Art, music, drama, culture--it can bring joy and meaning to your life, help create empathy and make you a more compassionate person, and broaden your experience of the world. It's worth investing some time in.

The Church: So many great men and women of the Church were rigorous thinkers and champions of education--not because they believed Christians needed to get a good job and make a good living--but because our God is revealed through creation, through a Book, and through reason. Our ability to understand God and creation is vastly enhanced through a study of the humanities--philosophy, history, literature, art, and music. It is no accident that these disciplines are the first to be chucked as our economy reduces education to career training.

Hmm, I feel like there might be some people who would say, Okay, okay, I get all that. Culture and art and everything is important, I know. But I just need to make sure I can get a good start at college, get some classes under my belt early on--I'll get to all that other stuff eventually, after I know that I have a good job to fall back on. But, really, will you? Most adults I know have trouble finding time to fit a single book into their schedules--and we're talking an Oprah's Book Club title, not The History of Art in the Western World. Once you're well into your nursing or engineering or computer science program, are you really going to make room for Greek and Roman Drama or Irish Literature? Being forced to take those kinds of classes as part of a liberal arts degree has sparked an unexpected interest in the minds of many a science- or math-minded student. Not that they changed their career path necessarily, but they enriched their minds and experiences for the rest of their lives as a result of exposure to something new.

Here's my main point, put succinctly: Rather than supporting the pursuit of knowledge and experience, which is the right goal of education, college classes in high school create the culturally destructive mindset that higher education is something to race through as quickly and cheaply as you can, so you can get that awesome job and start raking in the bucks. Hopefully I've done a better job of communicating that argument here than I'm sure I did to those high schoolers a few days ago. I feel passionate about this topic (can you tell?), and I hope that this trend I'm seeing peters out soon (though I'm not holding my breath). Please write in the comments if you have any questions or want to present any counter arguments to anything I've said. I really would love to hear them.



*I really love teaching the material of my college credit classes, and I do think they offer much to our student body and do a lot to prepare our students for college. (If I didn't think the classes were profitable, I wouldn't teach them.) I just wish they weren't billed as a replacement for the same classes in real college.

**Even public schools often draw students from a fairly homogenous community (especially in rural Oregon), which would be different from that of a college campus.

***True, only the first of these objections (that students are not developmentally ready) applies to high school students taking college classes on a community college campus, but I think that first objection is, in fact, the most important.

****That is, those employers who just want some mindless automatons to push buttons, shuffle papers, or make change out of a register. Employers who want thoughtful, creative, well-rounded people with knowledge and abilities instead of "skills" are getting cheated by this system. They belong in the second category.

*****This is not meant to be a bash on two-year colleges--they provide a useful service for the educational needs of some people. But many of the students who, during high school, rush into programs like the ones I've mentioned are not students whose ultimate goal is a two-year degree. They are usually high-achieving students who would otherwise attend--or plan to ultimately transfer to--a private college or a university.)

Labels: Christian sub-culture, college life, controversy, rants, teaching

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Getting Oriented