Current Event Posting #3

Skylar

Education
Yes, I Took My Ninth Grader on a College Tour (and It Was Worth It) by Dave Marcus
NY Times 04/17/12
666 words

Dave Marcus, the author of "Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges - and Find Themselves" became very intrigued with Oyster Bay High in early April of 2012. Upon some research, Marcus learned that the school, located on Long Island finds that getting a child interesting in college at a premature age is essential to success. Principal Dennis O'Hara has established a program in which eighth graders from a Oyster Bay High feeder school are bussed around to several colleges that have some sort of representation of Oyster Bay graduates in their student body. The students are not flooded with information on the names of the schools, their particular histories or the GPA required to obtain admittance to the schools but more so, they are given an idea of what campus life is like in general. The students watch sports games, eat cafeteria food and socialize with college students that grew up in Oyster Bay. The idea that Marcus picked up on the most from O'Hara's program was the importance of giving a student an incentive. Using an analogy of relating college life to desert food, Marcus explains that you have to show the kids the desert first if you want them to eat all their dinner. Essentially, if you want a student to apply themselves in high school, you have to show them what treasure awaits at the end of the tunnel. Now convinced that O'Hara is a genius, Marcus waisted no time in signing up his ninth grade son for a tour of a somewhat local (12 hour drive) college known as Paul Smith's College. He picked this college because it appealed to his son's taste for wildlife and it offered an alternative outdoor learning environment. Completely convinced that this his son would be ecstatic after visiting Paul Smith's College about the rest of his time in high school, Marcus was sadly mistaken. His son had hardly any interest extending beyond the campus's pizza menu. It seemed to Marcus that this college tour made his son no more motivated to do well in high school then before. In the end, Marcus learned the best lesson of all, that its silly to try and force the future on kids when they still have so much more time to be just that, a kid. I have to agree with his final consensus. Going to Gunn, I am well aware of the stigma that "every grade counts!" starting in the eighth grade though it really is not true for everybody. Everyone's path is different and at eighth or ninth grade a student is between the ages of 13 and 15. Most boys haven't even reached puberty by then, and how would you expect a boy with braces who hasn't even exceeded 100 lbs to want to make decisions about the rest of his life?