Student trip to ISU

Today, I took 38 of our students, mostly seniors, to Illinois State University. Overall, it was a great trip. Everyone was well behaved, no one got lost, and the students seemed to enjoy thelmselves. As for me though, I am astounded by how uninformed our students are about college.

When we arrived at ISU, we pulled in behind another bus of students from another school. As we were walking up to the student union building, one of my students said she was going to hang back. I asked why and she replied, "because it's going to take them a while to get through security." I had to explain to her that there were no metal detectors on college campuses, or security checkpoints. Several other students expressed surprise by that. They've never been to school where there weren't metal detectors and guards at the door checking backpacks.

Later, when looking over freshmen orientation material, students were having a difficult time grasping the concept that they won't have the same classes every day and that they might have several hours in between classes. They also didn't seem to get that no one was going to be taking attendance every day and that they would be responsible for themselves in every way.

Similarly, towards the end of the day when we were in one of the academic buildings, one of my students asked me, "how come there aren't any bells? How do they know when classes are over?"

So many of my kids are coming from so deep a deficit about college, that I wonder how we can adequately prepare them. These kids are seniors and many still haven't applied to any colleges. Few, if any, of their family have attended college. Its incredibly frustrating but also makes me want to do more to help them prepare. I'll have to see what other teachers I can recruit to try and help.