I had a professor in graduate school who would tell his students when they entered the program that college was for all students. While I worked closely with this professor and took some of his classes, I was not in his program so I heard this statement second-hand from some of his students. Most of the students who mentioned this to me disagreed with his philosophy. They believed that college wasn't necessarily for everyone; that there were some students who simply couldn't handle college or really didn't belong there. At the time, I honestly didn't know what to think. However, after reading this article and gathering information over the years about expectancy theory and the Pygmalion Effect (another blog post at another time), I realized that my professor was right. The authors in this article state that college isn't for everyone, but that we still don't have nearly enough students in college. I agree that college isn't for everyone, but we should assume that it is. There are many students that are told that they won't make it in college; that they can't or won't be successful. But so many of those students are capable-they just need a little encouragement and an adult who actually believes in them. So while I'm not sure that every child should actually go to college, I do agree with my professor-we should at least act as if they should. Check out the article and then let me know what you think. Comment below, tweet me @fpschDrSweeney, or contact me directly. Enjoy!
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/college-for-the-masses.html?referrer=&_r=0
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/college-for-the-masses.html?referrer=&_r=0
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