Wheel… of…. Pathways!
I've been experimenting with graphics that encapsulate the many Pathways available to kids when they graduate from CHILLS in a way that provides clarity without subtly conveying preference for one or another. I don’t think that I have met this objective… until now!
A circle! That's the ticket! A quick consult with Mr. Feeney with a rudimentary hen scratch on his white board and my developing vision became what you see above!
If you are playing along at home...
DWF: Direct to work force without any additional training or education beyond high school. Students who have completed a CTE program at MCST often have sufficient skills, credentials, and experience to enter the workforce without the need for any additional training. They graduate work-ready on day one.
WFD: participation in a Workforce Development program that trains students for a particular career. Often, but not always, this includes the Maine Community College System https://www.mccs.me.edu/workforce-training/train-my-workforce/
MIL: Military service, which involves additional training for the jobs that a recruit qualifies for based on their ASVAB scores. People who are in the service have jobs while they are in that often help land them jobs when they are out; a high school classmate of mine was an air traffic controller in the service and then did the same thing as a civilian. He is RETIRED now and living his best life in his newly built house on the water in Friendship with a garage full of grown up toys…at age 55.
CCT: Community College/Trades. Free community college has exploded enrollments in the MCCS, but there are other trade schools, many associated with Maine's boatbuilding heritage. There is no dichotomy between college and trade schools as the memes on Facebook would have you believe. Many students pursue a trade at a community college; college and trade school are not separate entities.
FYC: Four year colleges with reasonable acceptance rates that make it possible for a broad spectrum of students to enroll.
SLC: Selective colleges require a completely different parallel process that extends way beyond what students applying to reasonably accessible FYCs need to complete before applying. If 18,000 kids are applying for 1,400 available slots, students need to distinguish themselves through rigorous academics, plentiful co-curricular participation, and favorable intangibles that exude the certain je ne sais quoi that the school’s enrollment management folks have targeted for a particular admission cycle. There’s just no way to know if your profile is the “right” one in any given year, so you have to (over)prepare for any possibility.
There is a strong argument for including GAP experiences as a 7th pie piece, but GAP experiences are interim steps on the way to one of these more enduring categories; you don’t GAP forever. Plus seven pie pieces would throw the whole thing off. So if you must, picture a GAP experience in your sequence between graduation and the Pathways Wheel.
It’s worth emphasizing that one is not destined to be in the same particular category forever. One of the great things about education is that you can take a break and come back to it as your life circumstances change. It’s like a train that you can get on and off of as necessary.
Why the College Decision Doesn’t Matter
“It’s late winter, so high school seniors everywhere are finished with college applications and are now just “waiting to hear.” That’s how their parents will phrase it when they bump into friends at the grocery store and are asked where Sally or Jack is going to college: “Well, she’s applied to blah blah blah and now we’re just waiting to hear…” Depending on the subtle inflection in the words, there’s hope in them, or exasperation, or desperation, or smugness, or false modesty.
When a parent of a high school senior says that one sentence, we are just waiting to hear, so much more is conveyed. There’s, “We are just waiting to hear, but she got Cs and Ds in high school and there were those two incidents with the police so it’s not looking good,” and there’s, “We are just waiting to hear, but what with the four-point-eleven GPA and the National Merit Scholarship and the charity work and her work with the Junior Peace Corps, we are confident she’ll get in somewhere.” And everything in between. Read on…
I read about postsecondary matters a lot. I was reading recently that colleges (Skidmore, Elon, Western Michigan, and many others) have begun to provide explicit instruction in the finer points of sending a letter because students don’t know how to properly address or stamp snail mail, calling to mind comedian Karen Morgen’s spot on generational observations about the state of Gen Z.
I have two Gen Z’s and have no interest is maligning the entire generation (in fact we could devote a full blog about the ways that Gen Z are crushing life better than the rest of us), but it did get me thinking about parents that overdo for their kids passing the torch to a surrogate Mom in absentia to do the same. This goes way beyond bringing Timmy’s trumpet to school for the umpteenth time because he forgot it, again.
This is way more than a care package!
I envisioned the PDQ (Parental Distance Quotient) when I started visiting colleges to give some sense of what separation from one’s parents actually means. I think of it this way… if you wake up one morning feeling like garbage with COVID/Flu symptoms (or have a romantic break up, or have a huge fight with your roommate, or fail your first assessments, or…) how long would it take for your Mom to get there? No matter how independent you are, the first time you get sick away from home you want your Mom. Could she make it to your college in time for a homemade chicken soup lunch? Or maybe by dinner time? Or would she need to hop on a plane with four connections and an elapsed travel time of 22 hours 13 minutes before she could minister you back to health? It matters.
Considering this perspective, having Concierge Moms be a thing would potentially embolden kids to go further afield for their collegiate experience than they might otherwise, taking comfort in the fact that they will have boots on the ground support if they choose to matriculate far from home. This would aid students in leveraging one of the few factors in the admissions process that they control absolutely--geographic variance. Colleges love to say that they have students from 48 states (I don’t have a clue where kids from North and South Dakota go to college, but it’s not at the schools I have visited...) Kids that are empowered to venture below the Mason-Dixon line and/or west of the Mississippi make for more attractive candidates because they represent geographic diversity.
But then comes the equity issue. Concierge Mom services are privately arranged and privately paid, which leaves out the population that always gets left out–students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. These are also the kids less likely to have nearby relatives of means able to come to their aid if necessary. Add in the real and perceived risks navigated by first generation students and it seems pretty unlikely that marginalized kids would be able to benefit from private Concierge moms.
If Concierge Moms are going to be a thing, they need to be a thing for everyone. When we visited Guilford College last April we discovered that they are bringing back the House Mom with a modern twist–a focus on mental health. House Moms live in the residence halls and are broadly accessible to students who need a cup of tea, a spot of advice, or a shoulder to cry on. King’s College in Halifax NS CA has a full time “Auntie” on staff to support indigenous kids (who grow up in communities in which all the Moms watch out for all the kids). Colleges hoping to survive the looming enrollment cliff(s) are going to have to “out-amenity” other schools. Providing this kind of just right/just in time support would be one way to create a more welcoming and supportive environment.
More About the SAT’s Resurgence
“When the pandemic forced the cancellation of SATs in 2020, most colleges were forced to make the submission of standardized test scores optional for admissions. That led to a widespread social experiment as colleges that previously required standardized tests decided to forgo the requirement indefinitely, often in hopes that it would increase campus diversity.
Now colleges should reexamine those policies, figure out if they worked, and make changes if warranted. That analysis will look different for each school, and colleges should figure out the impact of policies on their particular student body. Is the class more or less diverse with a standardized test requirement or without it? Are admitted students more or less prepared to succeed? Read on…
The dreaded scourge that plagues second semester seniors is imminent (if not already spreading like wildfire throughout the senior class). Here’s a prescription for parents to help manage this particular affliction.
Five Town Adult Education to Offer Red Cross Babysitting Class
The primary purpose of the Babysitter’s Training course is to provide youth who are planning to babysit with the knowledge and skills necessary to give care safely and responsibly for children and infants, such as diapering, bottle- and spoon-feeding, age-appropriate games, activities, and dealing with uncooperative children. This training will help participants to develop leadership skills and become better babysitters. They will learn how to build a babysitting business, keep themselves and others safe, and learn about basic childcare and basic first aid. This training is designed for youths ages 11 to 15.