I Don't Mind the Gap

Our eldest graduates from high school this year.  She has taken her SAT, ACT, APs and has a “good” GPA.  She’s got an account with the College Board and Family Connection and has letters of recommendation from two teachers.  

She’s done the college tours and has even experienced dorm life during Summer camps & programs.

She is all set to start college.

But she won’t. 

Not next year.

Next year will be a gap year for our daughter.

Instead of leveraging her “institutional learning” (Read: academic grades and standardized test scores) she’s going to put her “authentic learning” to the test (Read:  critical-thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and her character).

She will forgo the programmed for the open-ended.

After all, she lives in the 21st century and has, genuinely, learned to hone 21st century skills.  

On the surface, this gap year is going to be all about her passion, dance. She’s been a dancer her whole life.  Dance has been a physical, intellectual and spiritual journey for her.  Dance, has taught her about herself through the lessons of leadership, hard work, focus, cooperation and the joy & pain of achievement and movement.  She’s made lifelong friends and has loved and lost through dance.  

Teachers and Parents as “Educators”

As a Teacher, I don’t have to make assumptions about “Education”.  I live it everyday.  I understand, intimately, what students are expected to do as members of a school community.  Her school is all about preparation for college.   But, as Parents we have a responsibility to prepare our kids for the real world.  And, in the 21st century, this mandate has never been more challenging.  

The world is a messy place.  But it’s also a very exciting time to go exploring.  As parents of an expat kid, we don’t see travel and cultural experiences as a “need” for our daughter - she’s had loads of those on several continents.  Nor do we feel compelled to encourage her to jump into college as a requisite “next step” in becoming a responsible citizen of the world.  Her formal education (courses, clubs, activities, service, travel, etc.) rivals and, in many cases, exceeds our own high school and undergraduate university experiences.  Her school has prepared her well for the academic world.  But, there is a whole universe of needs and opportunities beyond the collegiate walls. 

Fortunately, her school has also prepared our daughter for this reality (although it had nothing to do with grades or a 6 hour standardized test).

Not a Dance Mom or Dad

If you know me, then you know how much I value our daughter's Dance program.  If you really know me then you’ll know that I don’t care, one way or another, about dance, per se.  What I mean to say is that what I value about her Dance program has more to do with the 21st century skills learned and applied in authentic ways than it does about the medium or the art form.  

Read this for more on her Dance Program and the 21st Century Skills taught and applied:

http://issuu.com/sasnf/docs/cr_2013_11 (see pages 24 & 25)  

I do love to watch my daughter perform.  It’s a real joy.  But, my pride and satisfaction are in knowing how hard she worked to get a performance piece to stage.  There are hundreds of hours of collaboration, creative trial and error, countless revisions requiring problem-solving, trust and commitment that had to take place before there could be a show.   As a member of her school's Dance community she is constantly going from theory to practice - everyday. Usually, for many (credit-free) hours after the 3 o’clock bell.

And, it’s just the kind of thing she’ll need in the real world.

One of my favorite books on child development is NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  Here’s what they say about teenagers as it relates to theory and practice:

“Here’s a Twilight Zone-type premise for you. What if surgeons never got to work on humans, they were instead just endlessly in training, cutting up cadavers? What if the same went for all adults – we only got to practice at simulated versions of our jobs? Lawyers only got to argue mock cases, for years and years. Plumbers only got to fix fake leaks in classrooms. Teachers only got to teach to videocameras, endlessly rehearsing for some far off future. Book writers like me never saw our work put out to the public – our novels sat in drawers. Scientists never got to do original experiments; they only got to recreate scientific experiments of yesteryear. And so on.

Rather quickly, all meaning would vanish from our work. Even if we enjoyed the activity of our job, intrinsically, it would rapidly lose depth and relevance. It’d lose purpose. We’d become bored, lethargic, and disengaged.

In other words, we’d turn into teenagers.”

The Newsweek article goes on to explain the, seemingly, brainless behavior teens exhibit as a function of living and working in an abstract bubble. What the research says they need is, instead...

“...a way to do something meaningful in real life, interacting with adults, outside the realm of the high school artificial bubble, and outside the hovering control of their parents. For some, it was volunteering at organizations that really needed their help – where they felt they were making a real contribution. For others it was tutoring younger kids. For others, exploring a passion without regard to its value to their college application. Or it could be a job (not a McJob) where they interacted with adults. A little went a long way. “

So a gap year is an easy decision for us as “Educators” (Remember: Teachers &  Parents). Although as my 12th grader is quick to point out,

“I don’t do anything just because you suggest it, Dad.  I do it because it makes sense to me; because I want to.”

And you know what?  We’ve had the pleasure (and breath-holding discomfort) of watching her grow up as a result of real, applied and, yes, painful experiences that were rooted in decisions she made. So we understand, deeply, what “makes sense to her”.  She “owns” that. 

And real learning cannot happen without ownership, period.

She’s taking a gap year to explore and apply her skills to learn in the real world.  Experience is the first (only?) teacher.  Our job as “Educators” is to facilitate, to get out of the way of her potential and, most importantly, to let her own it (the successes as well as the failures).

Our kid will go to college - eventually. Our parents did.  Her aunts and uncles did.  Most importantly (according to research), we did.  We understand the importance of a college degree and the college-experience.  But, we also recognize that learning is not limited to a college campus and cannot be distilled down to a GPA and an SAT score.  

Our Big Girl is a learner and will take whatever steps that “make sense to her” in order to continue learning.

And, as “Educators” we couldn’t be prouder.