May 4, 2009 | In: character, Culture, Education, Society, Truth, Virtue
Giving In To Senioritis – Extending Childhood Yet Again
May is the month for students to look forward to graduation and the approach of the end of the year. The classroom tends to take on an air of spring lightheartedness mixed with impatience for summer vacation. As a student I actually enjoyed this time of year – when homework could be done outside and the monotony of book work cold be broken by games of frisbee or volleyball, or even just a walk in the park or a bike ride.
However, as a teacher part of me dreaded this time of year. Students looking forward to summer vacation often wanted to begin their vocation a month early. Whining increased. Assignments arrived to my desk later. Bathroom breaks got longer. I felt a growing sense of frustration as my carefully crafted lessons fell onto deaf ears and daydreaming minds. I especially felt this sense of frustration as a teacher of seniors. I taught college level courses (Cooperative College Credit courses as well as Advanced Placement), and I saw my job as not only preparing these students for college but ushering them into a higher level of cognitive skill. I’m a bit of an idealist, so when seniors turn off and tune out, I find myself increasingly frustrated at their unwillingness to make the most of the time they have left in high school to grow in their ability to think and learn.
This frustration is nearly universal, and modern educational philosophy has begun listening to the whining of seniors as if it were the wisdom of the sages. Articles like USNews.com: More Calculus? Toss the Frisbee! appear periodically at this time of year expressing possible solutions to the problem of “senioritis.”
Other articles recommend giving in to senioritis by offering early graduation, work study programs (which are usually nothing more than time off of school to work part-time jobs, despite efforts to implement an actual curriculum), or “human interest” courses (read “blow-off class”).
The article from U.S. News & World Report brings up a great point, and the solutions it offers are actually pretty good: making the senior year a truly culminating education experience (senior papers or senior thesis presentations) and/or linking the senior year of high school to college by having colleges set standards for the senior year that must be met for college admission the following year.
Only 36 percent of seniors say they do six or more hours of homework a week. Only 1 in 3 seniors takes a science course, compared with two thirds of European students. (To be fair, more than half of American seniors spend at least three hours a day working, about three times the international average.) The result is that many of the 70 percent who now go on to college either have let their knowledge base decline senior year or never acquired the basic knowledge and study skills to succeed. At some universities, as many as two thirds of the freshmen must take remedial courses–and many never return for sophomore year.
No one blames the students. “I’d act the same way,” says Kirst, who sees slacking off as the natural response to the confusing cues sent by colleges and school officials. By admitting students on the basis of their junior-year grades, for example, colleges send the message that senior year doesn’t really count. The trend toward early admissions only exacerbates the urge to kick back.
However, even this article may be missing the point. The underlying assumption is that the main purpose of high school is to prepare students for college, which students need in order to get a successful job. This underlying educational philosophy has (in my opinion as an educator) eviscerated the power of schools to offer a true education. Traditional Catholic education philosophy tells us that the purpose of true education is to teach us how to think so that we can discover the truth.
Instead of following the way that students actually learn, modern educational philosophy turns it on its head. Elementary teachers who see memorization as restrictive attempt to gain students’ interest through activities and arts, when in fact elementary students are primed for memorization. Meanwhile, goaded by reports about how little graduating seniors “know” about history and science, high school teachers attempt to cram facts into their students’ heads, focusing on memorization rather than forming students’ growing ability to analyze and to think critically.
Is it any wonder that by senior year most students see education as irrelevant? High school students who start their freshman year complaining, “When will we ever use this stuff?” in the face of memorizing dates, names and events are by their senior year driven to distraction by even more requirements to memorize “useless facts.” In truth, they should have already learned these facts, and should by now be engaged in real thinking about their subjects.
Of course, anyone who knows adolescents and young adults realize that even changing educational philosophy and practice won’t get rid of senioritis. Fallen human nature pretty much guarantees that students will seek luxury and fun over the true good of learning how to think. However, even this struggle can be a good thing if it teaches the self-discipline of putting off what we think we want for the sake of a higher good. One thing is certain – giving in to senioritis is not what is good for our young adults. It does nothing more than keep them children when they should be embracing adulthood.
Related Links:
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
