High Schools Does Not Prepare Students Well Enough for College - Essay Sample

Introduction

Education presents itself like a ladder in a learner's life. A student always starts from the lower level to the highest level. The ladder always needs greater efforts for a student to make it to the other level or else they remain stagnated in one level. At the first step in the education ladder, there are a large group of students willing to learn. But as the struggle continues, the numbers of learners continues to reduce gradually due to various reasons. Some of the learners may be disadvantaged by their background. Some of the students come from the humble backgrounds of the societies. They lack financial support hence making it hard to proceed with the education. As a result, they decide to drop out of the system thereby reducing the number proceeding to the next stage in the ladder. The other reason may be to the diseases among the students. Mental diseases are common to students in the system (Hill 30). The affected students find it hard to seat in the normal class and get the concepts discussed in class right. As a result, poor results are posted hence attracting a lot of concerns and questions from their parents. Some of the parents fail to pay school fees since they think that they are wasted hence causing them to drop out of the school. The most common one is preparedness to join another level in the system. Teachers together with other stakeholders are responsible to prepare students to other level. In some cases this turns out not to be big case hence causing students to suffer in college (Wood 38). This paper is going to discuss some of the reasons that cause lack of preparedness for students joining college. Information gathered from the books, various articles has been utilized to explore the matter. Moreover, the paper is very vital because it explores the reasons, challenges faced in college and solution given at the end. Actually, high school does not prepare students well for college.

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One important factor that classifies students and the schools is the mode of studying. At the early ages of lives, students are only taught on how to read and write. They first of all start with their names and then moves on to the names of the other creature around them. Both school and home where they come from are used to help them achieve the purpose. The teachers instruct the learners to name all the items found at their homes and at school too. They then make a comparison between the items and proceed on to write their names. Common shapes like square, oval, rectangle, and triangle encountered with are also used in aiding the students in knowing how to read and write. When the students graduate to another level, they are taught on how to read and understand the content in the coursework. At this time, more passages are used hence giving the students a chance to practice. Questions are given at the end of the reading session to test if the learner really understood the content. After the evaluation, teachers come in to identify the areas of weakness on the side of the students thereby device methods of handling them (Hill 28). As the students advance in their education, they comes across a lot of work that needs good reading habits to help in grasping and holding the content for long. This is the time when the students fail to fit in the system of academics while others adapt and succeed. Immediately after completing high school, students are required to enroll in various courses in the college. A lot of efforts are required in the selected courses to acquire the desired grades and here the studying habit plays an important role. Students with poor studying habits face it rough and always fail in their examinations. Most of the high schools never teach the students on good studying technique hence make the students to have in-efficient studying habits. In high school, teachers especially the English teachers never see the needs for preparing the students for their future education in the higher institutions of learning at the tertiary level. They develop the lust of money, chase them up and skip the lessons. At the end students are left are left with huge burdens as they are not prepared to face the college challenges.

Life in college is fully of spending. Students are required to spend right away from food to learning equipments. Most colleges do not offer meals to the students hence make them to look for the means of getting food. Without a well balanced diet in the student's meals, students will show low level of concentration in their respective classes which lead to poor performances at the end of the learning period. The students have also to look for a place to live as they attend the lectures ("Curriculum On The Edge Of Survival: How Schools Fail To Prepare Students For Membership In A Democracy" 518). To acquire a hostel, money is required therefore it is the duty of the student to consider it into their budgets. For better understanding in the classes, students need to stay in a better hostel with electricity and enough security. Clean water should also be available near the hostel to avoid the many arising cases of sanitation. But to fulfill all these important and demanding requirements, some good cash is required hence giving the task to find the balancing between the other expenditures and the hostile booking money (Wood 36). While in class, students may be required to purchase some reading materials to expound on their class discussion. This need again requires money from the pocket of the students who is not working. It is in such cases that the students need balancing and budgeting skills which should have been taught back in high school (Tempel 36). To make matters worse, the students in the high school while attending economics classes are only taught theories and not their application in life. For instance, a business student may know how to draw the supply and demand curves but fail to apply them in the day to day budget hence making them face the financial constraints in the colleges and even drop out.

In the college, students from various spheres of the world interact. Through the interaction process, current issues including the social issues, political and cultural issues emerge. Students are therefore required to take the advantage of the interaction to know the cultures of their colleagues. Some culture may concur with other while other differs. All in all they need to be respected and understood by the interacting parties. Failure to respect ones culture and the way of life leads to violence among the students hence attracting some heavy fines. Back in the hostel, students live together and share household chores and class work at the same time. The work needs to done equally by every member thereby avoiding the exploitation of some students in the event (Wood 32). Furthermore, issues like sexual orientation, political differences, and racism come in the process. To deal with such issues, student needs to have great minds which may help them avoid offending one another. For instance, the students should the law of their country before engaging in the heated discussion like politics. They should the repercussions of the discussing politics hence avoid them. For those who wish to argue, they do it wisely to avoid chaos (Bowers 119). Moreover, students encountering the issues of racism should the required courage to tackle with involving in must affaires that could make them be discontinued or cause a miserable life to their fellow students. Sexual orientation as the students interact, needs to be taken care of. Due to poor preparation, students lack knowledge to handle these issues. Back in their schools, are told not to take part in such discussion due to the corrosion of the culture according to the teachers. The end results in the graduation violent students to colleges who are font of causing violence (Tempel 37).

In the colleges, most of the learning is students centered. Students are always instructed to go and research and come up with the answers by their instructors. In this case, critical researching skills are needed to enable students accomplish the task. Contrary to the teacher's expectations, the students fail to accomplish the task but instead go on complaining that the assigned task is past their level (Bowers 117). They end up doing poor work hence giving the instructor a hard time go back to the drawing board and evaluate proper methods to be used to make them understand. In the discussions, students are supposed to have a good communication skills that may enable them pass their points across. Due to poor preparation and lack of language policy back in the high school where the students came from, the discussions end up bearing no fruits at all. The students are also left blank due to lack of expression skills that could be taught back in the high school (Bowers 120). From all these problems, it is noted that high school fail to engage students in the discussion forums. It is only through these forums that the students can develop the communication and the research skills. Before discussion, it is advised that the research be carried out on the topic given thereby the students can use such a chance to learn on the researching methods. If the methods are mastered, then a student can experience minimal problems in the discussions when given work to discuss by the teachers at the college (Tempel 35).

Conclusion

In precise, there should be a dialogue between all the learning institutions including the high schools and colleges to assist developing education programs in the high schools. They should also formulate the goals of the colleges as well as well as their requirements. These strategies could assist teachers in the high school in evaluating themselves and improve on how to handle their students. Additionally, the ministry of education in the respective countries should develop assessment programs to check on the teaching methods that the teachers use. By utilizing this method, teachers will have to follow the right course of work while teaching their students. Moreover, the ministry should put on more emphasis on the curricular activities in the school calendar. Schools that fail to follow them should be taken to taken to court and the heads be prosecuted. It is without much doubt that when such programs are followed the students will have better interaction, communication skills, and be ready to join the college where they will better performance.

Works Cited

Bowers, Ross E. "How Should The High School Prepare For College?". Journal Of Education, vol 87, no. 5, 1918, pp. 117-121. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/002205741808700502. Accessed 9 May 2010.

"Curriculum On The Edge Of Survival: How Schools Fail To Prepare Students For Membership In A Democracy". Vol 50, no. 01, 2012, pp. 510-520. American Library Association, doi:10.5860/choice.50-0418. Accessed 11 July 2015.

Hill, Peter P. "How To Prepare Secondary School Students For A College-Level Class In Diplomatic History". NASSP Bulletin, vol 74, no. 522, 1990, pp. 29-37. SAGE Publications, doi: 10.1177/019263659007452207. Accessed 12 Jan 2012.

Tempel, Nicole. College Readiness In An Era Of Standardized Testing: How One Charter Management Organization Tackles Both. 13th ed., University Of Southern California, 2010, pp. 35-48.

Wood, A. "Fail To Prepare Prepare To Fail". ITNOW, vol 56, no. 1, 2014, pp. 32-38. Oxford University Press (OUP), doi: 10.1093/it now/bwu015. Accessed 6 Apr 2015.