DOES NOT FIT ALL
Will Community Colleges and Other Avenues Will Help People
Flourish
After the Nightmares of the Job-less Recession of 2009?
If you are like me, you go to the local library and find one to 10 books that you feel will change your life and fill your time with both pleasure reading and higher learning / challenging your mind powerful forces.
I picked out a book discussing how we have to change education. It has been overdue twice. I skim-read it and it turns out Change.edu. It was called, Rebooting for the New Talent Economy and was written by a pay for education monster school, Kaplan College. This made me sort of not want to read it, but the ideas in it are both eye-opening in the history of paths of getting ahead that include for-profit schools and Universities.
One point is how Berkeley has such prestige but it started out as a not for profit mostly Bachelor of Science school and the founders might be surprised to see four health fitness centers and tons of artsy- smartsy (Liberal Arts) majors. But it is still prestigious and also fancy and necessary for most students to get good (better ?) jobs.
So other than those taken by somewhat rich kids who just automatically go to four-year schools. I think of poor ITT Tech where I taught yes, for one day. Which is now closed. And a location of a local charter school. I am thinking, they got the building and land for a probably very low lease price?
The rumor is that President Truman was the only twentieth-century U.S. President who did not graduate from college. Yet Truman was the small hero who began the President's Commission on Higher Education to stand by the needs of the WW II veterans who came home and turned students! My history professor at Glendale Community College was a down to earth, no Ivy in his League veteran who would not have been there helping others had not the opportunity arose.
In thinking about Education and its direction, I nod my head with a smile at community colleges. They were in part created to bridge the gap for soldiers who needed more skills and these two year colleges increased up to 360 by 1960. (Rubin, p.85 in Change.edu).
When I neared my senior year at Hoover High I declared I would be attending a University, Biola. But the truth was I was afraid to leave home. When the teachers all asked us where we intended to go and announced it at the award's ceremony, people in our somewhat affluent suburb, Glendale were claiming UCLA, USC and other lofty beautiful locations. Even I might say, Westmont...at that time the premier Christ-centered academic venue located in nearly heaven, near Santa Barbara. I went for two quick years instead to Glendale Community College. It became a huge foundation in who I became! With hours of free time to talk and giggle with Cindy Mendez whose United Methodist Church I switched to, and long talks with Marvel Shoen who was the first peer who "outed" herself to me, I was able to learn liberal arts things, keep my community, and be safely near home in times of vibrant growth.
There was a joke then in the 1980's about Community Colleges: what was two years would quickly become four. Due to its continuing reputation as not being real, these colleges nurtured fun and a sense of exploring and yes, students taking longer than needed to transfer to "real" universities. In looking back, it all makes sense. For some there was a huge contrast between the ideal that they WENT to college and the end product that they graduated and rose up like those who could afford four year Universities. They felt sad.
Students and faculty need to explore what the future holds. And sometimes a quick four years is not a complete foundation for Life. I for one don't want a nation of sad people!
My teen's alternative school counselor has said confidently more than once: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. In praise of non-charter schools, the schools once considered "continuation", I am seeing a lot of growth for students and a lot of "wow" in the faces of the teachers as they see the maturity in their young adults that surround them.
A co-worker (two jobber) at the call center I work at admitted to me she just moved here from another state where she worked at other call centers, and also just started teaching at a local charter school. She admitted to me that Vocational Schools and Tech schools are not to be shunned or overlooked nowadays. All roads lead to a good foundation, education, and there is no shame in getting skills because often that pays more than academics.
I am haunted by the words many (most?) of the inner city teachers I have taught with saying : YOU HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE...and how looking at my Facebook friends, former students, many have struggled with the dream versus life. Students from 1988, 89 and 1989-1995 now parents themselves are finishing their BS and BA's and feeling accomplished nearly 20 (maybe more, I was an English teacher not Math) years later. As well, in my call center yesterday I sat next to three people all mumbling and whispering about moving on, or getting two jobs because A/ one job at 10 an hour is not enough, because they won't let us work more than 28 hours a week....and B/ everyone still feels that a lofty Going To School will make them earn more money. Somehow. Magically?
In William Glassers' Schools Without Failure he speaks quotes, many of which are forgotten today in our rule-abiding follow the line society. He basically says that teachers and students should equally share the involvement in curriculum. This teeter-totter and give and take will help problem solving. It will help give an education that prepares students to live successfully in the world.
I still can't believe 1,000 people out of say 1001 still believe you go to high school, you go to college, and you will be middle class! There are many different paths; we see entrepenures and rappers for example getting ahead, but we tell artists and writers, aw, you will never make it big?!
In Cosmic Citizens and Moonshot Thinking: Education in an Age of Exponential Technologies, Rohan says: " In a world of increased automation and ubiquitous AI, we will see a merger between humans and machines. There is every reason to celebrate the sophisticated capabilities of today’s emerging technologies. These new human-machine collaborations will usher in a future in which humans and machines build on their mutual strengths to contribute staggering improvement to the conditions for everyday living."
<<< Underpinning this book is a constant focus on the importance of bringing a sense of awe into education and fostering a sense of cosmic wonder when contemplating human purpose and human existence.>>>
Author Rohan Roberts quotes Boyinaband's lyrics about education:
"I know igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks
Yet I don’t know squat about trading stocks
Or how money works at all - where does it come from?
Who controls it? How does the thing that motivates the world function?
not taught how to budget and disburse my earnings
I was too busy rehearsing cursive." -- by Boys In A Band
see also https://youtu.be/FR0_sZtCfJ0
Most people would say that EDUCATION should prepare you for life. But much of what is offered in schools seems to not work in that direction!
Why do we need to KNOW this?!
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