I was recently talking to a friend of mine who lives outside of New York City. He was in a panic that his 10th grade daughter wouldn’t be ready for college and that she was going to live in his basement for the next 30 years.
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All of us who are parents at this moment in the universe are susceptible to similar moments of panic. The world is telling us that our kids are in trouble - addicted to their phones, 没有动力, 也无法处理日常生活中的琐事.
I am a firm believer that we as parents should do what we can to fight this panic - a panic that to some degree is overblown. 然而, 我确实认为在非理性中有真理的内核, 那就是，是时候重新思考我们所说的“大学预科”是什么意思了.”
几十年来,, this term has meant mostly a firm grounding in a liberal arts education - a knowledge of math and science, 精通文学经典的能力, 以及有效写作的能力. 这些显然都很重要. We must give students a foundation of the knowledge that we as a species have accumulated, and the ability to effectively communicate may never have been more important than it is right now.
然而, I think schools are failing students if they don’t see that more than this is needed to prepare students for college. 不仅如此, the risk of “failure to launch” that my friend fears increases if we don’t broaden what we expect from college prep schools. One of the things that fills me with pride about 韦德娱乐app下载地址 is that here, college prep means more than just seeing how much math or other subject matter we can impart. 内容很重要，但对我们来说，同样重要的是:
1)帮助我们的学生发展他们的学术技能——如何学习, 如何有效地利用技术, 以及如何撰写一篇有效的论文. 仅仅教“是什么”是不够的。. 我们还必须教“如何”. 这是我们课程的主要内容. Our alumni consistently come back and tell us how ready they were for what they’re being asked to do and how shocked they are by how poorly prepared many of their college classmates are.
2)教学生如何有效地管理自己的时间. I am 48 years old, I know the distractions that were available to me when I attended college. 他们都还在那里, 现在还有Netflix, Hulu, Disney+和Xbox, 更不用说不计其数的游戏应用和网站了. 学生必须能够看到大局, to see ahead of time when they will be busy or a big assignment will be due. They need to understand how to prioritize and know when they need to work and when they can socialize, 玩, 观看Netflix, 等. 如果我们不能自信地送他们上大学，让他们有这种能力, 不管他们主导多少次AP考试，我们都会让他们不及格. 要做到这一点, Solebury consciously and purposefully gives students some free time during their day. One cannot become an effective man年龄r of time unless they actually have time to man年龄. For some it comes fairly naturally - they know they have a soccer game on Thursday and thus will have less time to work on the paper due Friday, 所以他们会在周二完成论文. 对其他人来说，这需要一些时间, 还有就是和老师的互动, 尤其是他们的导师, 这使我们的学生能够发展这种技能.
3) Empower students to advocate for themselves and ask for help if they need it. 我们不会和他们一起上大学. We’ve all heard the stories of parents calling professors or job interviewers on behalf of their child. College is supposed to be a time where 你ng people take charge of their lives. 我们的学生有优势，因为我们鼓励他们为自己辩护. They are comfortable going to their teacher or another adult to ask for help.
4) Appreciate students’ intellectual abilities so that they see themselves as people of value with ideas worth contributing to the world. 高中生经常被解雇. They are seen as problems to be solved by schools and the adults within them. At Solebury, the adults spend lots of time with students - working, learning, and just talking. 我们的学生明白，他们不会总是得到他们想要的, 但他们觉得自己有权利被倾听. They rightly consider themselves to be good thinkers, whose opinions and thoughts have merit.
微积分和美国历史很棒. But if 你 want a recipe for truly preparing 你r child for college - and for life afterwards frankly - for me, 我们需要真正关注上述项目. 这是我们所有人的方式，包括我, 你, 还有我在纽约的朋友, can best equip our students to be successful as they head off to college and out into the world.