As parents and guidance counselors encourage high school students beginning the new school year to pursue their dreams, a new study suggests that many of them are setting their sights too high.
Researchers at Florida State University (FSU) studied teens’ educational and occupational plans between 1976 and 2000 and found a widening gap between what teens believe they will do after graduation and their actual achievements, a problem that the study’s authors say can lead to wasted resources, anxiety and distress.
“High school students’ plans for what they will achieve are increasingly distant from what’s likely,” said lead author John Reynolds. The FSU sociology professor said other studies have shown a disconnect between students’ goals and their achievements, but this one shows that the gap has grown in the past 30 years.
2 thoughts on “Reality Doesn’t Meet the Ambitions Of Many Teens”
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Where to start, where to start.
This article is the beginning of the PR campaign to deflect the inability/unwillingness of the educational establishment to actually educate by now claiming that students’ expectations far exceed the students’ achievements, and that counselors need to be honest and manage expectations. (By the way, this is not a public vs. private school dichotomy, nor is it bounded by the four corners of educational institutions).
When I was in high school, girls’ expectations were managed: secretary, nurse, or homemaker. The expectations of kids who were not part of the societal elite (based on parental income and the jobs their fathers held), were directed to the trades — they took courses in woodwork, car maintenance, farming, not algebra, biology, English, Latin. Negroes, most who lived across from the odiferous vinegar factories, and whose bodies and hand-me-down clothes smelled of that caste, were often absent from the classrooms, but could be found helping out the Negro janitors, and performing “gofer” tasks for the teachers: getting chalk, cleaning the blackboards — preparing them for their assigned world of work.
Yes, “we knew” that it was a waste of educational resources to invest in their intellectual achievement. The guidance counselors’ and teachers’ jobs were to manage those expectations, and they did well — until MLK.
There have been some changes in the last forty years; we now say “blacks” or “African Americans”; we give lip service to “everyone can learn” and “no child left behind.”
But, after two generations of living under a society enamored with the cult of personality (not the development of character), and, lacking a backdone, bowing submissively to authority (power), ignoring real authority (knowledge and informed wisdom born of hard work and study), the failures become obvious; but so too become the apologies.
“We’re doing very well, thank you, given the number of black and brown colored kids in our schools.” (Real achievement cannot be expected). “We need to make learning fun. You get a gold star for trying.” (Hard work is not required; getting the right answer for the right reason is not mandatory). “We need more computers in the classroom — the computer gap.” (We don’t have teachers who can teach, who listen to students to diagnose and uncover student misunderstanding and clarify. Teaching should be performed by dumb machines, books are passe’).
No. What this PR campaign is really saying is the expectation(promise) that the educational establishment and society can or is willing to actually teach our kids is unrealistic, and we must realistically accept that most (many) of our kids are not educable.
It seems to me that the disconnect between work and outcome is a societal shift, not just an educational shift. A positive of standards based education is that it avoids the “gold star” approach to evaluating progress (there are problems, in my opinion, as well, but that would be another strand…). However, there appear to be a lot of parents who think that their children are “entitled” to certain marks–whether they have earned them or not. Their children should get “4”s (which would indicate acheivement more than a year above grade level) rather than “3’s” (proficient). A friend of mine who taught at a private high school described the pressure put on her first by parents, then by the principal, to give students higher marks than she felt was appropriate. The current attitude–acquire what is wanted at any cost–seems to have becme pervasive in our society. It is evident in our sports arenas and in our political arenas. It is evident in the stories of parents who successfully hound teachers out of their districts for daring to fail a child caught cheating. It’s evident in the interference of parents into their children’s jobs and college experiences. Bottom line: if we want children who are willing to work for what they want, we have to stop meeting their every whim outside of school; rescuing them from every unpleasant experience; and preventing them from experiencing failure when failure is the realistic outcome of either their efforts or actions. Privilege and success should be earned. In our society they are frequently handed down to our children in neat little packages instead. Are school complicit? Sometimes. Are schools the cause? I don’t think so.