For many of us, March 13th is a day that will live in infamy. It’s a day when life jolted us, at least on the East Coast, awakening us to a new way of life, a life now immersed in a pandemic.
Shortly after, and moving back home as I job searched myself, I started connecting with both college students and recent graduates, including many who found themselves graduating now as their college experience was cut short along with a tanking job market.
I was not only listening to their experience, but also reflecting upon just how much it hasn’t changed since I graduated from Bloomsburg University 26 years ago. Despite the advancement of technology, dwindling computer labs, and vast growth, the experience had not changed much at all.
This, more than anything, kept me researching for answers as to how this can be. The brilliance of marketing allows anyone to rebrand something outdated, even if, in many ways, it’s exhausted its value. The first real change was seeing The University of Notre Dame beginning classes in early August and finishing at Thanksgiving. All of us who have lived through the “college experience” could appreciate the genius of ending then rather than returning for the rat race which follows!
Don’t get me wrong. There are aspects of college I wouldn’t change. I’m still a believer there is great value in young men and women having the opportunity to move away for the first time, into a new environment, which still allows room for mistakes and ill-advised choices. It’s how many learn, for the first time, how to navigate adult life. It could, though, be more.
Nearly thirty years later, though, it seems as if we still refuse to ask what students need. It seems as if we still choose not to listen to the actual people we are serving, young men and women embarking on a lifelong journey, and give them what we had. I heard many say they need to know how to network, learn about themselves (EI), how to navigate relationships, etc.
It often appears we fail to see the continuum of education and the development of young people. It often appears as a “stop and start” and this reality being the only continuum of the process, rather than seeing one as building on the other.
One person in which I’ve had conversations had commented about general education classes we all took in college. Most of us are left wondering are left wondering the same question. He simply asked the question regarding the observation, “Why can’t high school be general education?” I didn’t have an answer other than, you’re right. Why not? It generally is anyway. However, we lack the cohesiveness when it comes to our thinking of education and development. What’s needed is an integrative approach.
It’s also not to say all gen eds are bad. There is room for them if they’re teaching necessary life skills. I wouldn’t have said it at the time, but I do believe there is a place for philosophy and learning the art of critical, deep thinking.
There is also the issue, and discouragement, of gap years. It seems, for us adults, there is a rush to get young men and women somewhere, to the next step in life. I have known many who just didn’t know what they wanted to do with themselves and yet felt continuous pressure to advance to college or work life immediately after completing one step. Is there a way to modify the “first year” experience which encompasses both aspects, the freedom to explore while learning life skills?
This may not be entirely bad, quite frankly, if young men and women were given proper tools to truly self-reflect and become more conscious of the lifelong choices they are making, there is a greater chance of success and not merely surviving. Over the years I have listened to countless young people, now professionals, who were going into a particular field for no reason at all other than this is what was expected of them.
Whether we care to admit it or not, we adults don’t always know what young men and women need. We give them what we think they need or want, colleges and universities then find themselves catering to the parents of young men and women, and we consistently leave out of the conversation the one who were serving, as if they don’t exist and as if their voice doesn’t matter. It’s not to say they always know what they need, but when we listen, we can begin to discover the deeper longings.
The current model will consistently leave us with generations who rely on others to tell them what they want and need, lacking the skills to think critically and self-reflect. It leaves us with large portions of a population depressed, feeling disconnected and lonely, and outright miserable, feeling the pressure to continue to chase the American dream, a dream which isn’t there’s in the first place all while feeling like they don’t belong.
I may have been most troubled after speaking to a young man who just graduated two months ago from my alma mater. I simply asked, as I asked most of them, “So what’s next?” He simply said, “I don’t care. I’ll worry about that then.” Here he was on the brink of a college degree, graduating, and still hasn’t taken any time, as he told me, to really consider what he wanted to do with his life or what life was asking of him. All I can think of is how we failed this young man in some way. It’s ok to not know what you want to do, but when self-awareness is lacking, the step forward can seem insurmountable. It would appear the university doesn’t care much either. It appears it’s not about what’s best for the student at all. Are we listening to the people we are to serve? Once he’s gone it’s someone else’s problem.
Even for someone who has studied theology, the gap between the intellectual side of a study and its practical application is baffling. I’ll be the first to admit, I loved the theology and the intellectual formation. However, there was not even a desire to close the gap. Many of whom I spoke with the past months speak of the same reality in their given fields and as newly minted young professionals.
I can only speak of my own experience when I say this, but it’s often because of the lack of practical experience the “experts”, “specialists”, and professors have in the given field. I’ve been there. The theoretical side of education was one thing but stepping into a classroom of human beings is another. It’s not to say the gap won’t exist. It will and needs to for growth. It is, though, a disregard for the gap and pain point, in our fields of study.
It is also our attachment to binary thinking. The classroom is one thing. Your work is something different. We see it happening now. We either open or we stay closed. Now I’m not purvey to internal conversations, but I would hope there are conversations happening as to how we grow and change this system to better serve in the 21st Century. Is there a question beyond open and close? How about, how do we do this differently? We’re being given a golden opportunity to change antiquated systems which no longer serve nor listen to whom they serve. How about, “What do the people we’re serving need?”
It seems to me, listening is key, along with the ability to think critically. It would appear the only one being listened to often is the dollar. It seems to drive most today, but money isn’t going to tell us the real needs of who we’re serving. Institutions tend to get it backwards, money driving mission rather than the mission driving the money.
How do we do that? Well, we start by listening to people, to the one’s we’re serving. The fact the system has not changed dramatically in the past thirty years is still hard to imagine. The one place where we’d expect creativity and innovation seems to lack it. This time should cause pause for any institution to ask, “What’s our purpose?” “Have we moved away from our mission?” “Are we really listening to the people we serve?” For in the end, it’s about service.
If the response is simply to return to what we know, I’d suggest you begin to look for a new avenue to learn and be trained. Institutions need to do the hard work necessary today in order to remain relevant into the future. It doesn’t mean the message or mission changes, but the means of getting there are beyond ready for change. There are plenty of avenues popping up to fill these gaps and why? Because of a refusal to change. There are people who understand what the people they serve, need.
If education is to continue through the 21st Century, it’s time to listen, change, and over and over again, ask, are we meeting the needs of the young men and women we serve? It’s time to see it as the continuum it is, even beyond our college years. It’s not hard unless we make it hard. At this point, though, there’s no looking back but rather discovering a new path forward.
The Hero's Descent 