Stand Out in the Crowd!

By Kevin Scritchfield

standout student For the most part, public schools are getting the fallout of the American family today. In order to maintain an ever-increasing affluent lifestyle, both parents have had to not only work, but have very demanding careers - jobs that require a heavy time commitment. Of course, the biggest losers in this process are the children.

I have been a public high school teacher for 25 years now. The majority of the students that I see have essentially had to raise themselves because their parents are simply gone so much of the time - both at work and play. And to be honest, they have not done such a great job. But what could you expect? Children were not meant to raise themselves. They need a significant person in their lives who, at a minimum give them direction, but even better, train them in how to be a good adult. Therefore, it is left up to the schools to do more and more of this training.

Last spring, the staff at my school was getting so frustrated with student behavior in the classroom, that our administration sent teachers to workshops and conferences and re-worked our discipline policy in order to empower our staff to set a whole new tone on campus this year. A big part of this process has been to simply train the students how to act in a classroom. Some teachers took it so far as to even giving written quizzes with questions like “You will all have an assigned seat after the school year gets started. Where do you need to go and stay once you enter the class?”

I say all of this to make the point that public education, in my opinion, has been forced to progressively work toward the lowest common denominator in terms of the students in the classroom and a large portion of this is simply based on student behavior. Teachers have to spend too much time telling little Johnny to simply sit down, stop talking, and not be a complete distraction to the rest of the class.

Within this generalized environment, we also find the kids who have great parents and have grown up in very stable homes and/or have some discipline and self-control in their lives. Or, quite possibly, some students in spite of their home environment still have a drive and motivation to work hard and do well. But unfortunately, these are the kids that get the short end of the educational stick. Because most teachers have to bend to the lowest common denominator in their classrooms, the brighter, stronger, and more motivated students don’t get the challenge and stretch that they need to learn and progress. If you are one of these types of students, it would definitely be to your advantage to seek out alternative forms of education.

Charter schools are certainly on option available in more and more areas across the nation. In my opinion, there are several reasons why charter school can be more successful than the average public school. I know that one of the charter schools in our area requires all incoming freshmen to be ready for Algebra 2, play a musical instrument, and be fluent in a foreign language. You give me a classroom full of this type of student and you bet I could teach them a few things!

A recent Stanford University study shows that only 17% of charter schools outperform their regular public school counterparts while 37% of them do worse. So, perhaps charter schools are not the answer for these self-motivated, hard-working students either. There are many, many options for homeschooling now in terms of methods of learning from satellite TV programs to independent study programs and even online curriculums. The advantages available to students now in terms of earning dual credit for their high school curriculum as well as getting college credit through the CLEP testing process seems to fit this type of self-driven student very well.

There is a young man that is currently a senior at our school right now. When he was an incoming freshman, he registered for my Introduction to Computer Programming class. This is a fairly advanced course intended for students who plan on majoring in Computer Science or Engineering and so it is normally limited to juniors and seniors. He brought his laptop in and showed me some of the programming projects he had been working on in a few languages that I had never heard of at the time so I told him he had the background knowledge to be in the course.

Throughout that semester he showed me how truly intelligent and self-driven he was. I have observed him in various ways since that time and it is very obvious to me that he is literally jogging in place in terms of his education. He is merely waiting for the time to come in his standardized education to graduate. In terms of his intellectual knowledge and discipline he could have graduated at least a year early if not more and been that much further down the road to his life goals. He is a perfect example of the type of student that, in my opinion, the public education system has failed. He is also the perfect example of the type of student that a program like CollegePlus! could help in a tremendous way.

So, stand out in the crowd! Take on some initiative and make your education your own by stepping out of the typical mold and do what is best for you!

Kevin Scritchfield has an AA Degree in Bible and Theology, a BA in Math, and an MA in Teaching and has been a public high school teacher for 25 years with the last 15 at his own Alma Mater, Sierra High School, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. He has been married to his lovely bride for 28 years and has a 16 year-old daughter and 14 year-old son - both currently working on their degrees through CollegePlus!

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1 comment so far - Leave a comment below

The public school system needs more teachers like the author of this blog post. He has hit the nail on the head with his assessments on the challenges in the public schools. The lowest common denominator analogy sums it all up.

— Marty Wednesday, November 17, 2010 5:15 PM CST

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