Ideas for Dealing with Senioritis 

In this New York Times Sunday letter exchange, Marc Bernstein (Fordham University) kicks off the dialogue by arguing that the senior year of high school is a big waste of time and resources for a significant number of students – they arrive late, have light schedules, and take multiple lunches. Bernstein proposes that in 10^th grade, each student, family, and counselor should meet to decide whether to have a traditional or an alternative senior year. The latter might involve beginning full-time college early, taking selected college courses, working to earn money for college, or taking part in a volunteer, apprenticeship, or service experience. Bernstein suggests that per-pupil state aid should flow even when students graduate early, with the unused money going to the school and to graduating seniors’ parents for the child’s college savings account. Here are some of the responses to Bernstein’s proposal:

• Ana Fores Tamayo (of Keller, Texas) says that she went to college early and feels it was a mistake: “I regretted missing out on all the things that make senior year so special, and that help students grow emotionally: the senior prom, the senior trip, the camaraderie and wonder of being the big kids of the school…We all need that little bit of fun. We need that innocence, that joy, that laughter, that once-in-our-lives moment.” She recommends that students take college courses and work part time while staying in high school.

• Merri Rosenberg (of Ardsley, New York) had the opposite experience when she went to Barnard College a year early. She was glad to escape the 40 classmates at her small private high school (they’d been together since kindergarten) and although it took her a semester to find her footing socially, the college experience was transformational. “I met young women from around the country, many of whom have remained my best friends,” she says, “and was nurtured and challenged by talented professors and scholars.” 

• Rita Hall (of Great Neck, New York) says the Village School in her community instituted an externship program in which seniors spent their final semester assisting an athletic coach, working at a plant nursery, shooting a photo portfolio, writing for a local newspaper, or (in the case of her son) studying cooking in Florence. Students were required to keep a journal and do a presentation at the end of the year. “Students matured,” she says, “and parents and teachers were moved to discover what these kids could do.” 

• Will Viederman, a high-school senior in Amherst, Massachusetts, disagrees with the idea of making such consequential decisions so early. “Creating alternative learning tracks for students beginning in 10^th grade would abolish the feeling of community within a graduating class or age group,” he says. “At an age when personal identity is still something to be searched for, when religious and political beliefs and sexual orientation and racial identity segregate and isolate students, we do not need to add academic ability to that list. There will always be some students who get more A’s than others, but if that divide is made clearer by the departure of those who are ‘ready,’ it can do nothing but hurt the students still in school.”

• David Greene (of Hartsdale, New York) touts a program called WISE – Wise Individualized Senior Experience – in which seniors spend their second semester doing a project for academic credit to explore a chosen passion – for example, a career search, hobby, or scientific experiment. “Isn’t that a better way to help seniors move forward to the next part of their life, college or not?” he asks. WISE is being implemented in 60 schools around the U.S.

“Sunday Dialogue: A Cure for ‘Senioritis’?” in The New York Times, Mar. 3, 2013 (p. SR2), 

http://nyti.ms/W0KMJS 

From the Marshall Memo #491