Do We Need a National Gap Year?
It was the worst of times, and then…it got even worse. The age of foolishness, incredulity and the winter of our darkness and despair. But now, it’s spring, and even in Michigan, the snow patches in the woods have receded and everyone’s talking about what comes next. Because, clearly, Plans Must Be Made.
We have to get back to normal. Even though normal wasn’t working all that well for us, six months ago.
I have a friend who lives in California. His high school senior son, after a lengthy college decision-making process, chose Purdue, in Indiana. Right now, the focus is on the missing final exams and graduation ceremony. But soon, my friend may be sending his child 2000 miles across the country to start college during a pandemic. Because Mitch Daniels, former Republican governor of Indiana, says it’s OK.
There are upwards of three million high school seniors in the United States, right now. That’s a lot of young people being dumped into a dangerous society, college- and career-unready, to borrow a phrase. What do they need most right now? What do students already enrolled or just leaving college need?
Perhaps we ought to ask first what the nation needs, at this moment.
There have been hundreds of op-ed and think pieces published, about the transformative nature of a pandemic, as applied to education. And I love reading this stuff—the idea of re-making education from the ground up, fashioning an equitable system that’s based on genuine human and social needs, is just so CONTINUE READING: Do We Need a National Gap Year? | Teacher in a strange land
