High-Maintenance
High Schoolers—No Light at Tunnel’s End?
Do
you think that high schoolers have potential which goes untapped, to their
and our detriment? I believe
so, but I remember one person telling me that high schoolers were “high
maintenance”; in other words,
there would be more cost in supervising them than there would be benefit
from whatever they did.
I
tried over a year ago to prove that high schoolers were not
high maintenance. I proved
to myself that I was wrong. On
March 21 of this year, I came across the following in the Higher-Education
Service Learning listserv:
...I'm
teaching an Introduction to Psychology course and [university] students are
working at an afterschool program nearby in a low-income area. ... The
project sounded like a good idea. In practice, it's going badly. The staff
are not very friendly or helpful to my students or to the children (many of
the staff are high school students and not very experienced). The atmosphere
is therefore chaotic and it's hard to get concrete tasks done.
If you answer the
multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com
with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward
a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in
2008 by a local nonprofit organization.
1. Why are high schoolers not reaching their potential?
(a) They spend too much time in the classroom.
(b) They do not have enough time outside of the
classroom learning by doing.
2. As the Federal government and big corporations find
ways to put us in debt, our community is going to have less money to
maintain itself. Turning high
schoolers from community liabilities to community assets would be useful.
But how?
(a) Defy “No Child Left Behind” and create a
community-oriented curriculum.
(b) Introduce service-learning into Montebello Unified
and ensure a large role for the community in implementation.
(c) Print a local currency to help our community,
whether or not we be able to turn high schoolers into community assets.
May 15, 2008