student led curriculum

Teachers are in high demand these days and I think this is wonderful, but I am worried about the students I teach that are graduating high school now. I’ve been teaching high school for over 11 years. High school is supposed to be the most stressful, pressure filled environment for students, yet I see a lot of them, every year, with only 1 credit to their name. It’s like they just walk in the door each year and say, “Okay, I’m ready for school.” It breaks my heart. We all wish we could go back to our teenage selves and give ourselves some good advice.I think that a student is the one place I still feel I can do good by them. Yes, there are rules and regulations to follow, but if a student knows that they can come to me and ask any questions or be honest with me they are going to be far more prepared than if they are at home all on their own. If I am not there for them, they are going to get lost.I see that every year when I look at the students who come to the graduation ceremony. How many of them know anything about anything? Do they understand why they are even going? Are they scared? Are they really ready? Many of them tell me they don’t even know what college is. Most of them tell me they only go to high school because they have a job or family. They are the ones I worry about.I think about our education system. I think about how far we have strayed from what the best educators believed was best for a student’s future. We have moved away from the “college and career readiness” that was the ideal in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Then we were told that we could make it without a high school diploma. Now, we’ve begun to tell kids they are entitled to a college education, even if they have no interest in college or don’t know what it is.I wish I could go back to the days of when I was a teenager. It would be nice to walk in the door of my high school classroom and have my classes be a bit more interesting. I would like for my students to know how to take care of themselves, how to be responsible, how to be safe, and know that sometimes things aren’t going to be easy. Yes, it would be nice for them to want to succeed in life. But, at the same time I think it’s not nearly as important as knowing who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they want to shape their future. I think it’s sad that kids are given so little in high school and that they have no idea where to turn to find information. I can’t help but think that most of them

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