Crazy…
Sad. And we wonder why kids have breakdowns.
They need to go back to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
This is indoctrination. This is the area on which I disagree the most with Obama. The net result is stress, living in a sick way for resume building versus authentic interests, feelings of failure for the many who don’t go or don’t graduate, huge levels of debt and disappointment at the lack of change in job prospects after all that work and money.
I worked on a local educational foundation that funded college trips for 6th graders. I protested to no avail, and asked that there be funding for programs that helped kids who did not want to go or could not go to college.
In some cases, students can get better paying jobs with community college associates degrees, or other training. We need more apprenticeships and on the job training, period.
My kids just barely escaped the new academic kindergarten (and preschool) and learned how to draw shapes, make a friend, and put their boots on in kindergarten. The world of young children has become so stressful; it is hard to read.
I started reading the article and my eyes almost rolled out of my head.
Those poor kids.
A policy of encouraging every student to go to college is one that is destined to mound piles of debts on those students who are least able to make enough money to pay off their debts. Our schools need to recognize that some students aren’t good readers and may never do well in algebra, but they can learn to be a heck of a welder or mechanic if given the chance.
Telling little kids to look up and beyond their noses is not all bad. I was told forever that I was going to college. That was the expectation from the outset. The difference is my PARENTS did the indoctrination–it ran in my family. I don’t think it’s wrong to gear kids to high expectations for themselves but first grade seems more than premature. Instead of filling out imaginary college apps they need to learn how to read and multiplication tables (which is harder than this stupid project).
Maybe the real problem is that the new teachers have been so “indoctrinated” that they think this is how life really works?
That they wished they’d started the college app thing in first grade? That they think they are saving some kid from future ruin? What a sad thought!
I was told the same thing. My parents didn’t go to college, but they firmly expected that my sister and I would–and since we happened to be good students who wanted to go to college, we were delighted to agree with them (and let them pay for it).
But if our parents didn’t have this expectation, I don’t think that any outside agency could have changed things. It was their family, after all.
If there’s going to be outside indoctrination, I think it should be aimed at the parents.
^ I was brought up knowing it was expected I would go to college and I brought up my son with the same expectations. Even my grandmother who was born in 1901 went to college. But, going to college was not for the purpose of getting a job - it was simply for becoming educated.
Wasn’t there already a thread about this article? I don’t want to repeat the comments I made there again. But one thing that makes me uncomfortable with the idea that we should also be encouraging kids to go into trades is that it feels like this is sort of code for, poor kids can become mechanics and plumbers while the rich kids can go to college and get white collar jobs. Not that I think blue collar jobs are bad, but I wonder how many parents on CC would be okay with their kids going into a trade, or would be willing to go into a trade themselves.
The reason I say this is that I read all the time how high schools aren’t doing enough to encourage vocational training. But this doesn’t really agree with my experience in a lower middle class high school. There was a vocational school that we could attend our last two years, and we received a lot of encouragement to attend. I was actually one of the few people that didn’t attend the open houses for those interested in the program. And our teachers and counselors made some of the same points I hear now about vocational education - that you can get some pretty good jobs in the trades. I definitely felt more pressure to attend the vocational school than I did to go to college.