Related Website That Has Many More Articles
I began studying the transition from secondary school to broad access postsecondary education in 1997 with large grants from the Pew Charitable Trust. Our flagship publication, Betraying The College Dream, was published in March 2003 on the bridge project website. Many papers followed and can be accessed on http://bridgeproject.stanford.edu, or put the bridge project in a search engine.
The theme of the Bridge project was how disconnected k-12 and postsecondary education systems undermine student aspirations. The historical roots of this separation are covered in depth on the website, as well as many other topics. The blog began on blogspot in July 2006 to keep all the issues current.
I attended university in England and i have read many of your posts on this site. I agree that reform needs to occur, universities and high school entities need to work more closely together, but something in this post I wanted to reply to hit the nail on the head.
“Post secondary education systems undermine student aspirations”. Maybe it would be more efficient and logical to take a more fundamental approach to the problems a transition between secondary school and university can have on a student. I believe it stems from an early age, much earlier than high school and attempting to fix what is a fundamental problem, by not addressing the roots will ultimately be irrelevant.
Something I learnt at university that surprised me, especially in my first and second years, was the complete lack of coherency many students had with regards to their near or long term future. They had no idea what they really wanted to do, they merely made the decision because they had to. We don’t need more students, we need more vocationalists. “find work that you love, and you will never work a day in your life” – Confucius. We need more people who have wanted to do what they now have the opportunity to do, but from an early age.
The sad part is, this is not realised from early on because we are often told it is unrealistic. I have seen it happen and I have seen intelligent yet troubled children unnurtured – even the most beautiful of plants need water and sunlight. The teachers need to be able to sustain a childs development, not just create a lesson plan. A teacher should be a scout.