Page 71 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

Writing Workshop 5 (continued)
My Notes
“As his counselor, I knew that this kid was not ready for college,’’ he said. “He had not connected academically.’’ But when Mr. Griffith tried to convey that, the boy’s family’s reaction was “very negative.’’ The young man went off to college but did not graduate.
“It has stuck with me to today,’’ Mr. Griffith said. “If he’d gone to a different place, or taken a postgraduate year or gone to a community college . . . .’’
Mr. Griffith believes that some people—even bright ones—may not be cut out for college. “I don’t believe that learning isn’t for everyone,’’ he said, “but schooling may not be for everyone.
Unfortunately, that is hard wisdom to accept, especially when parents and peers are asking your son or daughter: Got your applications in yet? More important, what kind of pressure, shame and guilt do young people feel when they believe there is only one possible destination after high school—college—and they are not up to the task?
“I say, ‘Take your midlife crisis now,’ Cornelius Bull said he advises young people. Eighteen years ago, after a career as a headmaster and teacher, he founded the Center for Interim Programs, an organization in Cambridge, Mass., that connects teen-agers with internships in which they can do jobs like teaching English in Turkey or building homes in Canada.
“I don’t think any 18-year-old belongs in college,’’ he said. “I am dead serious.’’
Parents, he said, fuss too much over getting their children into college, and would be masochistic to send a child who says he or she just wants to have a good time. He told the story of parents who had warned their daughter that if she was on academic probation in June, she wouldn’t go back in the fall. “I told them, ‘You’re insane—tell her a B average or you work at McDonald’s,’ “ Mr. Bull said. Fathers are hopeless. Fathers say, ‘But they’ll never go back to school.’ Well, it just doesn’t happen. I think the kids just need surcease. Get out of their way, most of the time, and they’ll be fine.’’
He turns philosophical when talking about the good things that can happen to a teen- ager who is, as he puts it, “allergic to school.’’
“Tacking gives you wind in your sails,’’ he said. “You proceed by indirection. Our society thinks that’s dalliance. But how many times do you get the opportunity to sample things, even if they are irrelevant?’’
David Sohl, 19, admits that he did not apply himself at Watkinson School in Hartford, Conn. “I didn’t have a good high school transcript,’’ he said. “I was very unfocused and slacked off a bit. I didn’t have the good background for the colleges I wanted to get into.’’
Mr. Sohl, who said he would like to work in theater, spent a year at Dynamy, which was recommended by Mr. Gilpin. He interned in a professional theater and a recording studio.
“You get out of it what you put into it,’’ he said. “I spent some time building up a reputation as a good worker, someone who was punctual. My adviser has only glowing things to say about me. During high school, I didn’t have that.’’
What made the difference?
“I found something I was interested in.’’
After a year off, he is waiting to hear from his first choice, Columbia College, a small private school in Chicago.
16 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 7
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