Blog #6Oct. 22, 2018 – Dream Big
As educators, we are obligated to make sure all students know, deep down, that anything is possible.
We need to help students to aim high.
Astronaut, doctor, teacher, social worker, lawyer, engineer, landscape architect, Nobel-prize-winning mathematician, owner of a successful fast-food franchise, environmental biologist, head coach of a professional football team in the NFL.
On and on—the possibilities are truly endless.
Hey, even superintendent of a school district!
Of course not all of these paths lead through college, but many do.
And that brings me to one of the neatest opportunities available to high school students today.
It’s called Colorado Free Application Day.
This year, it’s Tuesday, Oct. 30.
Students who apply on that day to 32 public colleges, universities and private institutions in the state can do so without worrying about the application fee.
All you need to do is submit your application from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. that day.
College in Colorado, which was started by the Department of Higher Education to promote access to higher education, urges students to have their materials ready ahead of time so you can submit a high-quality application. So—get ready!
My point, however, is that setting goals starts early.
Getting ready to fill out a college application starts in Early Childhood Education, in Kindergarten, and in first grade.
I think this is a challenge and I know it’s a hard one, to nurture big dreams and also meet the academic needs of students who don’t have big dreams in place.
There are many forces that are working against public schools today in Colorado, including our level of public funding.
Colorado ranked among the 10 worst states for school finance in Quality Counts 2018, an Education Week Research Center analysis released earlier this year. The state earned a D-plus for its overall school finance climate, which was based on indicators of both equity and spending. It’s hard to chant “We are Number 42!” and feel proud.
In fact, teachers in Colorado are underpaid. And they deserve the best ongoing training and all the support we can provide them, including assistance for those students with social and emotional issues.
I’m not saying it’s easy, but sometimes it is a matter of setting sights on the dream—and consistently helping students understand each class and each lesson is a building block toward their goals.
Consider the words of Lillian M. Lowery and Will Del Pilar. Lillian was a poor black girl raised in the Jim Crow South by a single mother. Will was a Puerto Rican boy from a low-income Spanish-speaking household who seemed destined for vocational work.
Today Lillian is vice-president of P-12 Policy and Practice at The Education Trust and Will is vice-president of Higher Education Policy and Practice at the same organization.
In 2017, the pair penned a column about the power of dreams and posted it on The Brookings Institution website. Lamenting a whole series of dismal statistics about the under-representation of minority students in colleges and universities, the two offered this key insight:
“So although we all now drink from the same water fountains, children of color still go thirsty for the education they need and deserve. In an America plentiful with opportunity and resources, no child’s well should run dry, no child’s potential should go undernourished, and no child should be told to do anything less than dream big.”
So let’s nurture those dreams each and every chance we get and, if the time is right, get ready to submit those college applications on October 30!