In College, Working Hard to Learn High School Material

[elleng]

In June, Desiree Smith was graduated from Murry Bergtraum High. Her grades were in the 90s, she said, and she had passed the four state Regents exams. Since enrolling last month at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, Ms. Smith, 19, has come to realize that graduating from a New York City public high school is not the same as learning. . .

Over all, 74 percent of city high school graduates enrolled at the system’s six community colleges take remediation in at least one subject, but those needing all three are at the highest risk of dropping out. So in 2008, CUNY started a program with a few dozen students to see if an intensive semester focused on just the three subjects — five hours a day, five days a week — could make a difference. The program, known as Start, has since expanded. . .

Start courses go deeper than their high school classes did, and that teachers ask open-ended questions. “In math in high school if you got called on to answer a problem and gave no answer, the teacher moved on,” said Pedro Vargas, a 2011 graduate of Richmond Hill High in Queens. “Here they keep asking, they want you to explore.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24winerip.html?_r=1&hp

[pnwmom]

1. Maybe this is how they should be teaching high school --

at least the last couple years.

[elleng]

2. No doubt about it.

[SheilaT]

3. I thought that the Regent's tests were very meaningful.

Apparently they are not.

This is not even that new a problem. In 1980 I was working at my junior college in Northern Virginia, doing on-line registration. I was absolutely shocked at how many of those calling in were registering for remedial classes of various kinds. To a person they sounded like quite nice, middle class kids. And they'd probably graduated from any one of the number of good public high schools there in Northern Virginia. But they were going to spend at least the first semester learning what they should have already learned.

I honestly think that a large part of the problem is the idea that everyone who graduates high school should go to college. Various kinds of vo-tech programs are absolutely appropriate for a fair number of young people. Taking literature and history and anthropology is quite nice in many ways, but lets not forget that we need plumbers and electricians and cable installers also.

[immoderate]

4. Plumbers, electricians and cable installers can know literature and history and anthropology.

:shrug:

--imm

[SheilaT]

7. I understand.

It's just that literature, history, and anthropology (three things I love and read up on every chance I get, by the way) are not a very good path to employment.

For the last thirty years or more I never cease to be amazed at people who major in such fields and then express utter astonishment that there are not high-paying jobs just waiting for them when they get their diploma. Recognize that you're going to need to earn a living, and educate yourself accordingly. The other stuff is just frosting on the cake.

[elleng]

9. Except they are useful for studying law, imo; more than frosting.

[txlibdem]

10. True. Whatever happened to the concept of the "well rounded person"

And I don't mean physical size. College is supposed to expose you to the possibilities of the world and give you a core of learning that will help you all throughout your life.

[FBaggins]

14. Literature, history, and anthropology aren't taught because they are job skills

Learning how to learn, however, is a critical job skill for almost everyone. I can't tell a child in advance what he will need to know twenty years from now in whatever career he chooses... but I can tell him that understanding how to acquire that content is something that he will need.

Literature, history, and anthropology just happen to be worthwhile subjects in their own right and make excellent "practice" matter for the real education.

And being a whole human being involves so much more than limiting your body of knowledge to just those bits that are necessary to do your job.

[elleng]

5. Regents exams used to be very meaningful.

When I went to college, MANY moons ago, I was one of the only students who'd ever taken comprehensive final exams; came from NY, and I attended an Ohio state university.

Somehow, U.S. public education has dumbed down over the last 30-40 years. I agree vocational educational programs should be offered, as a major option, everywhere, but this is not meant to suggest 'literature and history and anthropology,' the liberal arts, should not be important features of high school and college curricula. AND music and art and drivers ed and physical education.

[tishaLA]

6. sadly, this is also true of students who have graduated from community colleges

I teach in a program every summer at UCLA designed to get transfer students prepared for the rigors of UCLA. I teach English composition to them; the composition class is conjoined with another class. Every week, the instructors meet with the curriculum director, a councilor, and the tutors from each class (each class is assigned a tutor, so students meet with the tutor for my class and the tutor for the conjoined class each week). While there are notable exceptions, the students just don't come with the writing or the critical thinking abilities required of a college classroom and, to make matters worse, community colleges often exacerbate that problem by rewarding average or subpar work.

This isn't to blame the community colleges, but to blame a system that doesn't provide tenure to community college instructors or make it financially feasible for community college instructors to 1) work within just one institution or 2) spend adequate time with students. When you have classrooms full of 40 students and expect them to learn to write well, it's just not going to happen. When the instructors have to travel from Santa Monica to Pasadena to Rio Hondo to have enough classes to pay rent and put food on the table, learning is just not going to happen. When the most instructors can reasonably do is assign a grade and put a comment or two on a paper, learning is just not going to happen.

So, yes, remediation is a problem community colleges unfortunately have to deal with. But it's a larger problem than that.

[exboyfil]

8. You are correct about the load per student for English teachers

I remember my Honors English from High School. I think she had two-three periods out of six free to support her efforts. My daughters English teachers have two out of seven periods "free" and one of them also includes a study hall with monitoring responsibility. In many cases the teachers have at least two different classes (for example 7th and 8th grade English) which is an additional difficulty.

My older daughter never had her essays corrected in 7th and 8th grade. For that reason I Homeschooled my younger daughter in English in 7th and 8th grade. Her time is more productively spent with me than with her peer group and an English teacher unable to offer feedback. My 8th grader actually helps my 10th grader with her essays, and my 10th grader is getting As in Honors English.

[txlibdem]

11. We need to seriously rethink our high school and junior high education system

If you can just sit there and do nothing and still pass??? Not good.

We should probably even start it off at the elementary school level.

[elleng]

12. Unfortunately 'we' do not have a system, each STATE does,

and they rethink or think or don't think at each of their wills. VERY unsatisfactory.
:(

[txlibdem]

13. I feel that way also

The states don't get to decide how much federal income tax their residents pay. They don't get to decide a lot of things. I believe that we are ONE nation and we should have ONE national school curriculum and one standard for certification of teachers.

[JPZenger]

15. Remember huge language barriers among these students

Remember that NYC has a huge immigrant and Puerto Rican population. A large percentage of the community college students in NYC probably have English as their second language. That can be a huge burden in college education.