In Favor of a Gap Year

I'm posting an article here that I found on the Challenge Success website written by a high school student. Leave a comment at the end of the post if you have a minute...

Reinvention
by Alex McNeil

Decked out in robes and hats, my 200-something graduating classmates were arranged in rows on the lawn below the stage. Beyond them their family and friends sat waiting for the joint speech that was to be delivered by the salutatorian and me.

It was not to be delivered by the salutatorian and me because I was the valedictorian. I was not. My GPA put me soundly in the lower-most quartile of my graduating class, and it was only a coincidence that my best friend—Andrew—was the salutatorian. We were speaking together because we wanted to and because my school didn’t care about grades when it came to graduation speeches. Anyone who cared to perform was welcome to audition—academic standings be damned.

Our speech was probably as unmemorable as your average student-delivered graduations speech: full of stammers and stutters, creatively bankrupt. But I remember it clearly for two reasons. One, I gave it (and I was nervous as hell). Two, I didn’t think I really deserved to speak at all.

The way I saw it, I didn’t belong behind the podium because I did terribly in high school. I never understood why I was in school, nor for whom I was there, and it reflected in my transcript. By senior year I found myself with a 2.4 GPA and no college acceptances. But there I was, speaking to my peers like I knew what I was doing. I felt like I was saying “I will strike out on the path that lies before me with cool, excited confidence. You should, too.”

I was neither cool nor confident—I was college-less and confused.

School had been hard for me, and I wasn’t eager to jump into another four years of it. But the idea of college was tempting. Maybe I would be good at it, I thought. Maybe it would just magically click. Maybe.

But wistful thinking couldn’t erase bad grades. So, not really knowing what else to do, I came up with a plan. It went something like this: take a gap year; attend a junior college; do well; transfer to a good school. I figured that a break from school might be what I needed. After all, I had no idea what I was genuinely passionate about or what I was interested in doing with the rest of my life.

This was a decent plan. But I was still embarrassed that it was the only plan available. Insecure, I did everything I could to hide my GPA from my friends. I lied, omitted truths, and built up a well-articulated fortress of reasons as to why I wouldn’t be attending a four-year college in the fall. I downplayed my academic track record and focused instead on money: “Honestly, it’s economical to go to community college. I don’t want to pay tuition for my GEs! I could go to a community college and get the same education for a fraction of the cost.” It wasn’t the worst argument, but it wasn’t one I wanted to be making. The contrarian in me doesn’t like to admit it, but I just wanted what everyone else did—a little liberal arts college to call my own.

But, thanks to my ridiculously low GPA, that wasn’t an option for me. My application was too weak to get me into the schools where I wanted to be, and I had no desire to attend the schools that would have accepted me.

Summer vacation came and went. My friends went off to school, and I found myself stumbling headfirst onto an India-bound plane and into the unknown. My gap year had begun.

My trip to India was steeped in new experiences—filled with revelatory moments of both joy and disgust. I saw the nauseating wealth of Mumbai’s upper class, experienced the destitution that slept in the louse-ridden corridors of an Indian orphanage, and got rocked by a magnitude-6.9 earthquake. During a two-week stint in Nepal I met the founder of a non-profit school-building initiative.

The prospect of building a school in a country as beautiful as Nepal was too much to pass up. I asked if I could come build with him. He said yes. I joined him two months later.

I left high school as a set of numbers: my GPA, my class rank, my SAT score. I returned from my gap year as more than that. I returned as a person.

My gap year rebuilt my sense of self-worth. By the end of it—for the first time in my life—I felt comfortable and happy in my own skin. I’m attending a community college now, but I’m doing it with purpose, direction, and confidence. My gap year showed me that I am lucky to have been born in a country where education is compulsory, of high quality, and free. My gap year convinced me that it is not just my duty, but also my privilege to spend my life helping those less fortunate than I am.

Everyone should take a gap year at some point in their life—student or otherwise. It gave me time to figure out who I am, who I am not, and who I want to be. My gap year was a year of introspection and self-exploration—one that changed the trajectory of my entire life.

In retrospect, I’m glad I failed high school. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t.

-Alex McNeil is an intern for Challenge Success

Bumper Stickers and Bragging

In my conversations with parents or in conversations I overhear around town, I’ve noticed that many parents publically mention their children’s grades to one another.

It goes something like this:

Me: How are your kids doing these days?

Another Parent: Great. Yea, _____ is getting a 4.7 this year. We are so lucky with our kids. _____ has never even brought home a “B.”

Me: Holy cow, that sounds like (s)he’s been really working hard.

Another Parent: Yea, we are so blessed. They are really great kids.

Or, a FaceBook entry from a Proud Parent: “ ______ got a 4.0 this term. We are so proud of her/him.”

Or, a bumper sticker: “Proud Parent of an Honor Roll Student at _____ School.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being proud of your child’s accomplishments, but let’s think about the message we parents are sending when we announce their grades in public. When we publically proclaim our kid’s grades, we are focusing on their performance instead of focusing on them as whole people. When we do this it’s easy to believe their (good or bad) performance determines WHO they are and HOW they are. I’m reminded of this in the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” when one of the teachers talks about this performance-driven society. Derrick, a teacher in Oakland reflects, “You never knew if he was a good kid, you only knew he was a good student.”

Another reason I’m not fond of talking about my child’s grades publically is I believe it is an invasion of privacy. Adults would never dream of asking each other publically how much money they made last year, yet they don’t have any qualms about telling friends what their child’s GPA is. I personally find it a bit offensive when someone asks me directly or indirectly what my child’s grades are. My child’s grades are his business. Not mine, or my friend’s. If we expect our children to take ownership of their grades, then we must give them the respect they deserve by allowing them to monitor their own grades and make adjustments when they feel it’s needed.

Is it ok to bribe your children to get better grades? That, to me, is like bribing your spouse (with a new gadget or vacation or massages for a year) if he or she brings home a bigger paycheck. Would we ever do that? No! Yet we do it with our kids. What good will come of bribing kids? It will most certainly improve their grades, but at what cost? They may cheat or lie to get a better grade. They may even develop stress-related illnesses to get better grades. And, bribing or rewarding takes the focus off learning. Our kids are supposed to be getting excited about the new things they are learning in school and in life. If we bribe them to get a higher measurable result on a test or in a class, we are overriding the importance of learning with the importance of the outcome--the grade, the number.

It is true that we live in a numbers driven society. In fact, our definition of success is often determined by things that can be measured numerically – grade point averages, salaries, price of house we own, price of cars we drive, price of college we attend, etc. It’s easy to get caught up in this, and harder to stop. But we must stop this focus if we want to value the whole child and his or her learning experience.

The next time someone mentions their children’s grades in public, what are some good responses? How about, “That’s great, but does he/she have any hobbies or time for fun things outside of school?” or, “What else does he/she like about school besides getting good grades?” or, “Who are your child’s closest friends these days?” or, “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about my kid’s grades, but I’ll tell you what he/she is really into these days…”

My husband had a great idea for a bumper sticker. Instead of “My child is an honor roll student” he suggested, “Honor the student, NOT the roll!” And, here’s another one I like, “At ____ school, EVERY student is an HONORED student.”

5-minute Advanced Placement class video

Check out this 5-minute video clip that was featured in the NYTimes Op Ed video library on January 25. "Op Ed: Advanced Pressure." I think every student who takes or considers taking an AP class should see this. I think every parent of every student who takes an AP class should see this. And, I think every AP teacher should see this, too.

My favorite quote in the video clip is from Dr. Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford:

“One of the original purposes of AP classes was to give students a jump start on taking college classes, and I think there was some belief that there were some students who were really ready to take college level courses. Unfortunately, it has turned into a kind of gate keeper to many universities. So now it’s not going deeper, really challenging yourself, it’s how many AP classes can I rack up so that I have more AP classes than the people I’m competing with? High school now has become preparation for the college application; not even for college, just the college application. And it creates a mentality that is expressed very well by my daughter who after her AP French test, said, ‘I never have to speak French again.’”

Add to that the insanity of GPA inflation. Imagine a world where the highest possible GPA was 4.0. Well, actually, I lived in that world when I went to college (20+ years ago) and getting into state universities was not nearly as difficult as it is now. Back then, only the brightest students took AP courses in high school and usually because they excelled in those subjects and had a real desire to learn more about them, not because their counselors, parents or friends suggested they take them to add weight to their GPA for college applications.

If you liked this video clip, check out the entire movie “Race to Nowhere.” The DVD will include extras like this clip. And, please feel free to pass along this video link to anyone.

Do you have any comments on AP classes, grade point inflation or college admissions?