Let's Get Going: Building A College-Going Culture
The first mistake many people make in trying to create a college going culture is the word ‘create.’ Our students have a culture already, and they don’t need us to create one for them. We aren’t there to toss out our students’ culture and replace it with our idea of what it should be; our job is to nurture the aspirations our students already have and help them realize that college is the way to achieve them. This post will cover several ways to do that!
The first and most important step is to get to know your students and treat them with respect. It’s not reasonable to expect that they respect you if you aren’t willing to sit down and hear them out. Teenagers often get treated like second-class citizens, and they really appreciate when someone takes the time to actually talk to them, ask them questions about their lives, and legitimately care about what they have to say and the struggles they face. After building relationships with a few students, you will find that their friends and their friends’ friends start coming by without you even seeking them out. Students talk to each other, and you as a person are in some ways a symbol for college itself. If they like you, they will like college. Before long they will be talking about you, and as a result, they will be talking about college.
Word of mouth can be a very effective tool, but it is by no means the only one you have at your disposal. Talking to teachers to get permission to come into their classes and give presentations can also get your foot in the door with some students, so you can start another relationship building chain and get everyone in their friend group thinking about college. Everyone likes to do presentations a little differently, but I’ve found that what works well for me is to give presentations that start off with something the kids already relate to. I only get to college part of the presentation after I’ve established a connection with the class. I like to talk about money first— how much it costs to live a certain kind of lifestyle, the ability to give back to your community, and the ability to make sure your younger siblings know that college is an option for them too. Most of our kids already want to go to college; many of them just don’t see it as an option for themselves. After you talk about the obstacles they’ll face if they don’t go to college, encourage them that it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a college out there that is a good fit for EVERYONE.
Making college a possibility and an expected step after high school is not a simple process. There is no one set thing you can do that will always produce a “College-going culture.” It is a gradual process that we can facilitate and work on, but don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away. Just keep on building relationships, keep a sense of humor, and prove that you mean what you say by following through on your promises. Year-by-year and bit-by-bit the students will gain the expectation that college is where you should go when you finish high school. Our students are responsible for their own culture, and it’s not our place to tell them what it should look like. We can show them possibilities and open avenues; the culture that will help them get to college will follow. All of our students want to succeed, it’s just a matter of making those desires into possibilities and then into reality!
About Ryan:
Hey! My name is Ryan Thomas, and I am a second year adviser from The University of Texas at Austin, working at Lanier High School in Austin, Texas. When I'm not changing kids' lives, I enjoy running, making fun of bad TV shows on Netflix (that I secretly like), and making absurdly good guacamole. I am also a freelance writer, pun-maker, and irony detector. You can contact me at ryan.c.thomas@austinisd.org, or just say my name 5 times while looking at your bathroom mirror.