4-24-09
College Match

A number of my students are seniors this year and have dragged me kicking and screaming through their stressful senior with them.  Now, everyone knows that I typically try to avoid high school seniors.  I feel that senior year is a time when students should be becoming more independent and more importantly seniors are notoriously bad about keeping appointments!  Well this year I had a sizable group of seniors who refused to wean and demanded that I hold their hands though their last year of childhood.

So it is inevitable that college is on my mind.  Although I finished decades ago, I can still remember the uncertainty and excitement of thinking about and applying to schools.  And oh those glossy brochures – how they can make you swoon!!  Most students grow up hearing about Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton and UCLA, but they have no idea what it will take to get to those schools and no idea if those schools will even be the right place for them.  They approach their junior year with a very narrow list of academic institutions and bashfully inquire about them to their college counselor only to have the counselor practically laugh in their faces.

Many high schools are now organizing and escorting students on week-long college trips.  They visit wonderful lesser-known schools like Rutgers, Cornell College, Whitman College, Macalester College, University of Chicago, University of Oregon, Cal State Poly Pomona, Santa Clara University, Spelman College, University of Arizona, Goucher College, and Northeastern University.  A school will be a good fit for a student if it is the appropriate size (will the student thrive at a small, medium or large school?), has the right athletics program (does the student want to participate in or go to sports games?), has the major the student wants to study (or might want to study) and is located in the right area (city, suburb or rural area).  There are many factors for a student to consider other than just the name of the school.  Can the student get into the school?  Does the student fit the “profile” posted on the college website in terms of grade point average and test scores?

The more schools students have a chance to visit and experience colleges the better.   After these visits, they start to see the bigger picture – their purpose in high school.  They start to evaluate themselves.  “What kind of student am I?  What do I want to get out of college?  Which college can my parents afford?  Which college is a match?”

Posted by Marlisa Johnson at 2:29 pm.

4-17-09
South Africa

It seems strange to take a trip to a far-away place like South Africa and not address it here at all.  Although I traveled to the country on vacation, I can never turn off my educator switch and was moved and affected by what I saw and experienced while there.  It has only been about a decade that Black Americans would even consider visiting the country since Apartheid was dismantled in 1994.  How strange to think that in the 1990’s there were “Whites Only” signs posted all over the place as they were in the Jim Crow South.  So they are still very close to that period of their history and in my opinion there was always a weird, uncomfortable vibe in the air.  At the same time, South Africa has progressed very far very quickly.  There is an emerging Black middle class and there is a new generation of children who will grow up not experiencing Apartheid at all. 

What bothered me most, and this can be seen in any country with a large poor population, is how the children are so unattended.  Driving through the townships it was common to see 2, 3 and 4 year olds playing outside alone and without supervision.  Children are so trusting and so vulnerable and it pains me to see them in potentially dangerous situations.  Would they be hit by a car or kidnapped?  Maybe I’m just paranoid…Young children really need an incredible amount of attention to develop.  Parents need to be speaking to their children, playing with their children and reading to their children.  It is not so much that I blame the parents of these children for anything, but rather am struck by how prevalent it is that poor children are generally neglected.    They have less food, less shelter, less education and less time with instructive adults.  I must admit that I did take on a bit of a Madonna complex and started plotting ways to take 1 or 2 children home with me.  But the problem of neglected poor children is systemic and needs to be addressed on a more global level.  Of course that fact doesn’t stop my wheels from spinning about how I can help be a part of the solution.

To get involved, visit any of the following websites:
Oxfam International
UN World Food Programme
End Poverty 2015
Children’s Defense Fund (USA)
End Child Poverty (UK)

Posted by Marlisa Johnson at 2:20 pm.