Is High School Nothing More Than a Hoop to Jump Through?

Fifty-six percent. That was the percentage of my high school students who said that the grade matters more to them than what they learned. To be honest, it felt like a punch to the gut. After forming meaningful relationships this year, after giving them tons of choice, after having them focus on student agency, fifty-six percent still view what we did as a hoop to jump through to get to the next--and in their perception--more meaningful step: life after high school.

How could this be? How could almost sixty percent of my students reject my entire year's efforts to convince them otherwise? I don't know what the emotion was. Befuddlement mixed with a tablespoon or two of something that felt like incredulity. So I read their explanations, searching for something to explain my failure.

Here is a sampling of the student responses I read:

High school is just a hoop to get to what you really want to do in life.

[School] used to be fun and now it's just tests tests tests and no fun, and when the teachers try to make things fun they can't because the district has banned fun (sic)

I feel that I view school as something I have to do but don't want to do.

If you don't meet a certain criteria your grade drops or it makes you think of yourself like your (sic) not good enough or smart enough but we all have different and unique ways of expressing what we learn and how we write it or read or do our work. We can't do what we like to do.

To clarify, my district hasn't "banned fun"; in fact, the district I work for is quite eager for students and teachers to push the boundaries of educational reform. But the negative perception lingers, clouded perhaps by the high stakes state testing environment in which many of these students have grown up with and within which we still are required to function.

And as I read, I found something unexpected: myself.

Minus the testing issue, these had been my exact thoughts about high school. It just was what it was: something I had to do. Even though I loved to read and write, I remember only really wanting to do the work in my wood shop classes. And though changes in the education world have shifted expectations for what school looks like now, and though I went to a small rural high school, I had some fantastic teachers who tried their best within the context of the educational expectations of the day. Interesting that I find myself thirty-some years later looking in the mirror and seeing them and wondering if I had been the source of the same frustration.

Ironically perhaps, serving in the Army taught me that I might have a few more smarts than all my years of schooling convinced me of. Personally, I didn't really become hungry for learning until well after high school. Truly hungry, that is. So...

Does High School Really Matter?

High school matters. I know it does. It has to. We meet them where they're at and we try to push toward something new and hopefully more important. But I'm wondering in what ways it does matter, and how for my students I can make it matter more in the moment?


There have been many studies over the years about whether or not high school matters. (Does high school matter? Does High School Determine the Rest of Your Life?) One longitudinal study of 25000 students even disputes the current belief that AP and advanced classes better prepare students for college work. The authors write that "the courses that students took in high school had very little impact on college grades" (When the Value of High School Is Exaggerated).

But, they're in college, right? So that door, at least, was open for them.

Regardless of the percentages, I think that's what we have to hold onto--that it is our job to help open doors for students and to convince them that they're worth walking through.

Next year, I'll keep doing what I think is the right thing for students: to connect, to inspire, to convince them that the work can be important not just for now but for the long term if we make the right decisions, if we focus on truly meaningful topics and projects, if we write like our life depends on it.

I'll keep opening the door to this opportunity, and keep hoping that more and more of my students will choose to walk through it.

I'd love to hear your comments on this.

Thanks for reading,
Steve

You might also be interested in these posts about writing with voice and authority.