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My greatest failure...
Mar. 6th, 2006 07:14 pmAs many of you know, I have worked with high school students since... Well, since about the first year I was no longer a high school student myself. I have worked a variety of roles - tutor, counselor, teacher. In addition, I have served as a confident, and as a friend. I have stayed in contact with a large number of my old students, and have followed their progress through college.
David Brooks recently wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, where he envisions talking to a Harvard University freshman-to-be and talks about what that student should learn while in college. He gets his recommendations from a wide variety of sources, and I agree with each of them.
The last paragraph, however, reminded me of something I wish I had pushed harder into my students' thick skulls.
Do not get me wrong; I tried to push this idea in their head.
"All that matters is the piece of paper at the end, people do not really care what is written ON the piece of paper."
"Major in something you enjoy learning about, not what you think will help you get a job."
"You will change your mind several times about what you want to do for a living. Do not choose a school based on their credentials in the one field you think you are going to study."
I simply wish I had yelled it from the mountaintops. Written notes and hidden them in their backpacks. Followed up routinely with them to make sure they were not in a career rut before their careers even began. Smacked them upside the head when they were unable to see past their nose, stuck in one of their textbooks.
High school students simply put so much pressure on themselves. I believe a large part of it is coming from a society that means well. High school students are led to believe that their actions have life-long impact. To some degree, this is true. However, all too often it is micromanaged down to "If I get a C on this chemistry exam, I will get a B in this class. If that happens, I will not get into my top college choice, and will not be able to study the pre-med curriculum that will get me into a top med school."
As our culture has made adolescence even longer, students need to take advantage of the full opportunities that are before them. Perhaps that is the exact problem. Perhaps when faced with so many choices, students are overwhelmed and fall back onto something safe and known.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.
I would like to say that this behavior changes after college, that friends of mine my own age look back at college with regret. "Wow, I wish I had taken a little more time to stop and smell the roses." Unfortunately they are not that enlightened just yet. Will I be writing the same about them in ten years hence? Are most people doomed to a life of pre-planned certainty, all at the expense of actually living?
I suppose I am the living representation of taking this advice to the extreme. I never knew what I wanted to do for a living. The more subjects I studied, the more people I met, and the more experiences I had, the less and less idea I had. As many of you read last February, I finally decided to simply embrace this idea.
I just wish I had been better able to get this across to my students.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
David Brooks recently wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, where he envisions talking to a Harvard University freshman-to-be and talks about what that student should learn while in college. He gets his recommendations from a wide variety of sources, and I agree with each of them.
The last paragraph, however, reminded me of something I wish I had pushed harder into my students' thick skulls.
Forget about your career for once in your life. This was the core message from everyone I contacted. Raised to be workaholics, students today have developed a "carapace, an enveloping shell that hinders them from seeing the full, rich variety of intellectual and practical opportunities offered by the world," observes Charles Hill of Yale. You've got to burst out of that narrow careerist mentality. Of course, it will be hard when you're surrounded by so many narrow careerist professors building their little subdisciplinary empires.
Do not get me wrong; I tried to push this idea in their head.
"All that matters is the piece of paper at the end, people do not really care what is written ON the piece of paper."
"Major in something you enjoy learning about, not what you think will help you get a job."
"You will change your mind several times about what you want to do for a living. Do not choose a school based on their credentials in the one field you think you are going to study."
I simply wish I had yelled it from the mountaintops. Written notes and hidden them in their backpacks. Followed up routinely with them to make sure they were not in a career rut before their careers even began. Smacked them upside the head when they were unable to see past their nose, stuck in one of their textbooks.
High school students simply put so much pressure on themselves. I believe a large part of it is coming from a society that means well. High school students are led to believe that their actions have life-long impact. To some degree, this is true. However, all too often it is micromanaged down to "If I get a C on this chemistry exam, I will get a B in this class. If that happens, I will not get into my top college choice, and will not be able to study the pre-med curriculum that will get me into a top med school."
As our culture has made adolescence even longer, students need to take advantage of the full opportunities that are before them. Perhaps that is the exact problem. Perhaps when faced with so many choices, students are overwhelmed and fall back onto something safe and known.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.
I would like to say that this behavior changes after college, that friends of mine my own age look back at college with regret. "Wow, I wish I had taken a little more time to stop and smell the roses." Unfortunately they are not that enlightened just yet. Will I be writing the same about them in ten years hence? Are most people doomed to a life of pre-planned certainty, all at the expense of actually living?
I suppose I am the living representation of taking this advice to the extreme. I never knew what I wanted to do for a living. The more subjects I studied, the more people I met, and the more experiences I had, the less and less idea I had. As many of you read last February, I finally decided to simply embrace this idea.
I just wish I had been better able to get this across to my students.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
