Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Waiting for Superman

Your teacher was right. College isn't for everyone, and recent studies are questioning the value of burying yourself in debt in the name of getting a BA (search for "Is college worth it?"). US society has romantic ideas that going to college is a magical key to overcoming all kinds of problems. And this sends a message that devalues jobs that don't require a college degree.

Not everyone can or should go to college. Not everyone is smart enough. Some people are interested in other stuff. And that's okay. Not everyone is suited to being a top-notch electrician either. That's also okay. Why take on a debt of $20K or $30K or more (google "average college debt") to get a degree in something you aren't terribly interested in or good at? There's more than one way to become a happy and productive human being.

IMHO, charts showing higher earnings for college grads don't account for other factors that affect earnings. Why be a mediocre marketing associate when you could be a really good plumber? Why do we value having more BA-credentialed marketing associates or sales reps? I don't get it. I'd rather have more highly skilled plumbers.

Do you think that it's possible that by making a sweeping statement like "college is important" makes you part of a machine that's telling your students what to do? By saying it that way, are you also telling them that anything but college is less worthy? This seems odd for someone who doesn't like to tell ethnic minorities that they should assimilate.

Food for thought.

I think I would have been much better off if I had never gone to college. For all the time I spent there, I could never figure out what the point was for me being there.

I'm pretty sure I graduated in much worse shape than when I started.

It kind of felt like I was imprisoned for several years.

This is a bit tangential but, kind of in f/u to your questions:
At our local public grade school, Asians make up 20% of our school (according to the school website). The AVERAGE STAR test result (STAR test is a yearly achievement test kids take in California) for the Asian kids out of a total of 1000 points was 980. The average for white students was 930 and for Hispanics was 870.
Alot of the Asian kids I have met at our school come from lower income families and they speak Chinese as their native language.

Not really tangential, since in traditional Chinese culture, doing well in school is almost the only way for students to please their parents. My 6th graders in Taiwan didn't even have household chores because they were supposed to concentrate on school and their cram school lessons (like the ones I taught on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons when the kids got out of school early).

We are talking about cultural values here, in addition to the value of college, education as assimilation, and a few other complex issues.

I don't know that I would have given the College is Important speech when I was teaching on the smaller island where 3/4 of the students were indigenous. For one thing, it would be cruel. They would have to leave their island to finish a four-year degree, and many of them had no intention of doing that. Besides, I was a new (to the island) teacher from North America, and nobody was taking me seriously anyway.

What about ability? Not everyone is smart enough to go to college. Encouraging people who fit this definition to go to college is, in my opinion, wrong (cruel, even). It sets them up for failure and feelings of inadequacy, saddles them with debt, and doesn't guarantee that they'll find a job (much less a job that they'll enjoy and do well).

I don't understand what is so wrong with admitting this fact. It would be great if everyone was capable of getting a college education, but wishing this were so won't make it so. I believe that our education system has a duty to help students discover what they're good at --- even if it's not something that's taught at college.

I know that it would have been nice if my college scholarship wasn't locked into engineering, a subject in which I had absolutely no interest.

So, instead of learning something I wanted to learn about in college, I was stuck in something. I had to make that decision prior to college to get the $$$ and if you dropped out of that college to pursue another major.

I had no idea what engineering was, only that my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to do it.

So, I took up somebody's space who would have actually wanted to do engineering and I wasted everybody's time and money.

Well, let me ask a few questions:

What is an appropriate age to start talking to students in general about college and other long-term goals?

What is an appropriate age to start talking to your own kids about these goals?

What is an appropriate age to say to a student, for whatever reason, oh, Honey, college is not for you?

On what criteria should we base that last decision? IQ? Task commitment and other "soft skills"? Maturity? Clarity of personal goals? Parents socio-economic status? Support of higher education as a value in family/culture/community?

There's no need to get angry or make assumptions about my attitude. Or that not going to college is a sign of failure or inadequacy.

As I noted, I believe that our schools are failing their students by pushing everyone to go to college, which results in not helping many of them find where their talents are. They get saddled with debt, stuck in unsatisfying jobs, and many don't get a chance to develop professionally. I think this is cruel.

There is an unsubtle message in the college-is-essential speech: people who don't go to college are somehow less worth or have failed.

You seem to be getting angry at the suggestion that our society shouldn't push everyone to go to college. I've experienced this reaction in others as well, and I don't understand why so many people look down on trades and jobs that don't require a college degree Many are critical to the function of any society, and many people who have these jobs lead productive happy lives and deservedly earn the respect of others around them. Why such a negative reaction on your part?

I think it should be the opposite, college as a choice, with a goal, not as a default.

Okay, you said that much better than I did.