On Thursday, I got together for lunch with some former students of mine, now in college. All three of them will be Juniors next year and are Classics majors at three different colleges.
All three of them had the same thing to say: "I didn't learn to think like I needed to for college in High School."
We talked about working with students and learning to think like one would need to for college, for the real world. Two of them are thinking about teaching as a career and the other one is probably headed to Law School. K complained bitterly about how no matter WHERE they went or WHAT they did, they would need to know how to think. They were just expected to know how to think in College, but it was a skill they had never learned.
"Where would we have learned it?" asked G, the only guy in the Lunch Bunch.
L shook her head. "Certainly not at our high school. No one knew how to think there. Be glad you got the hell out of there, Ms. L!"
I took the opportunity to direct the conversation. "What would have helped?" I asked them. "How would you help your students learn to think?"
"Having real discussions," G offered. "Like we're expected to do in college. Not being TOLD what the book means, but actually talking about it."
"Not doing 4 bazillion packets," said L. "Those are the most useless things ever."
"Teachers and Admin being Honest with students. Admin being honest with teachers. Well, Honesty in general," K shared. "Honesty is what puts the trust to share, to think in the right place. I'm always honest with my study group students."
I put this to you, loyal readers, because this makes me feel so old! These are my own former students talking about helping future students and learning from what happened to them as students.
What would you add to their list? How can we teach up and coming generations of students to think?
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