Why don’t they get it?
I ask myself that question just about every day.
During lunch the other day, I was having a conversation with a colleague. He mentioned a speech he gives to his ninth graders every year: every year, our school starts the year with around 1,000 ninth graders.**
Only around 350 will be there on graduation day. This particular year, there are about 120 current seniors that will not walk on graduation day.
Out of that 350 that graduate, only about 125 will go to college (community college included). Out of that 125, only about 25 will actually graduate college.
After giving these numbers, he always asks the class, “how many of you are going to college?” Almost every kid raises his/her hand. Next, he asks: “how many of you actually are acting like you are going to college? That is, how many of you actually have a plan and are doing something to make that intention a reality?”
Evidently, the questions don’t sink in very deep, for the overwhelming majority continue in passive patterns, coasting along, playing as close to the D/F line as possible, fully admitting that lack of effort and drive is killing them, but never actually making a change. The only ones who are impacted by my colleague’s questions are the handful of students who would take control with or without his speech.
He doesn’t trot out those numbers in order to crush dreams and play the cynic. He, like myself, thinks that urban students are just as capable as any other student from any other place and country. He discusses the stats to impress upon the students that having an intention and being uber confident in yourself isn’t good enough. Neither is having dreams….none of that means squat if you don’t have a plan and rigorously execute it.
Yet, most just coast on, like flotsam and jetsam. Why don’t they get it?
**Be forewarned: all numbers and percentages are estimates. In this case, many students transfer out of our school to other schools in the area, or they get floated in and out of other district schools for misbehavior of some sort. I fully recognize that the picture is quite the opposite in other schools, but this is reality where I teach.
See other posts on education.
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