CCR (ENGL 338)

So, what does it it mean to be "College and Career Ready"? It seems like it should be such a simple definition. As teachers we must make sure that our students are ready for their next step in life, whether it be going off to college or entering the workforce. This doesn't sound as much of a common core requirement as much as it does a job description for teachers, so in reality it must be a bit more complex than this.

The trouble that I have with this requirement is that it makes it seem as if our students will know for sure what they want to do with their lives after high school. I, for one, am getting my second degree and working towards my second career. Who is to say that our example student in class today, who is going to be a mechanic and work at Jiffy Lube for his career doesn't have a change of heart later on and decides to pursue something else, possibly higher education. If we only focus on making him career ready, have we not robbed him of the skills or confidence he needs to make a change? Yes, we will develop relationships with students and their families and maybe everyone thinks that this student needs to only be so proficient in something, but I think this definition of "College and Career Ready" opens the door to short-changing some students by not believing that they will or want to go onto careers that require a high level of literacy.

For my Assessments class, we listened to an episode of "This American Life" that talked about how students learn and succeed. One of the things that I took away from it was that there are several "non-cognitive" skills that factor into a students' success. As they say in the program, we consider a student who passes their GED to be on par with a high school graduate intellectually, but students who get their GED's tend to not find much success. It becomes apparent that there is something other than getting the right answer that factors into someone being "college and career ready".

I think getting students "college and career ready" must be more than simple academics. I think it might be related to pushing students to be their best, to challenge them. It might be to help them develop these "non-cognitive" skills that will help them succeed later in life.