Changing Our Lens of High School Students

            What would happen if we fundamentally changed how we view high school students?

            As our public high schools continue to produce students with significant outcome gaps despite almost a century of reform efforts, little consideration has been given to changing the lens in which our educational ideology views high school students.  Currently, high school students are perceived as young, immature, irresponsible individuals who require ongoing supervision.  By viewing high school students in this manner hinders the ability of adults to view high school students differently once these students graduate high school.  It is time to change to change the lens from which we view high school students and introduce a new lens:  the high school student as an “emerging adult.”

            In viewing high school students as emerging adults, our perception of high school students should change.  High school students should now be viewed as individuals who are going through the rituals and rites of passage into adulthood.  The language about high school students should also change.  Labels such as immature and irresponsible should now be viewed not as character flaws, but as skills to be developed and refined in preparation for adulthood while in high school.  Additionally, viewing high school students as emerging adults also compels adults to view high school students as the next group of individuals to take their place in adulthood and either continue their education or enter the workforce.  This would instill confidence in the public and private sectors to hire high school graduates.

Understanding that high school students are emerging adults, would require a change in how we view the purpose of high school.  The current model of high school would not be adequate for and emerging adult ideology.  Our ideas about expectations, needs, curriculum, class offerings, and pedagogy would have to be overhauled. 

High school curriculums would continue to place emphasis on mastery of the CORE courses, but these courses would provide direct connections to the successful transition into the adult world.  High school electives would focus on the development of skills and competencies that instruct students on the skills they would need for success in either post-secondary education/training or in the workforce.  Examples of elective courses are: etiquette (in society and workplace), financial management, applied technology, technical writing, project management and organizational dynamics.  Additionally, the curriculum and courses would no longer be fragmented and disconnected, but would be on a continuum that is connected to past and current courses.

With changes to the curriculum, pedagogy would also change.  Teachers would have to infuse technology and tools that are utilized in post-secondary education/training and the workforce.  When providing instruction, teachers should be utilizing powerpoint, EXCEL and other software/programs.  Lastly, assignments should be project based and submitted via programs such as Google Docs, Dropbox and other cloud based programs. 

If we change the way we view high school students, we may finally have the world-class schools and students we want and our emerging adults will also compete on the global level.