The Dream School

             We were holding a brief assembly for our 12^th-grade class, supporting them with whatever college-related information they still need at this point in the application process. In the assembly, our counseling department included a video clip of New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, who wrote an influential book a few years ago titled Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be. The book, which I have referenced many times with parents and students, addresses the degree to which characteristics such as character and work ethic end up meaning more to success in life than the specific college we attend.

            I believe that my life has lived out that premise, and I believe most of us would say the same. But so many of our seniors and their parents have their eyes set on a specific dream school, and they often find themselves feeling as though their goals will only be met by gaining acceptance to that school.

            As Bruni was just starting to make his point in the assembly, the sound cut out on the video. I was the one working the projector, so it must have been my fault somehow. Having read the book and talked about it frequently, I figured I should try and summarize Bruni’s point. I took the microphone and did just that, then added my own personal experience.

            I shared with the students that in the spring of 1989, I was valedictorian of my high school class and applied to many elite universities. I assumed that with my grades being what they were, I’d receive many acceptances. And yet, none of my top five choices accepted me. I “settled” for my sixth choice, an outstanding state school, one that many students – including some of my friends – had tagged as their dream school.

            I shared that when I arrived at this college, it quickly became clear that this was a better fit for me than any of those top five choices. I told the students that six months into my freshman year, I would have definitely turned down an offer to attend any of those “top” choices. I recognized that this school was the place for me, and that my senior-year dreams had been grounded more in illusion than in reality.

            My college, nestled in the dreamy town of Chapel Hill, N.C., was inviting me to study really hard, but also to stroll the downtown area and shop for CDs and cool T-shirts. This campus was providing me with superb classes but also with tons of extracurricular activities. I joined the school newspaper, and journalism quickly became the focus of my undergraduate years. The school wanted me to be a student who could excel on a final exam, while also contributing to the greater good of the town and the world around me. I was expected to work into the night on a research paper, yet also wait in line all night to get Duke-UNC basketball tickets.

            I told my story, and the students heard me, I guess. One colleague told me that when she asked students later how the assembly was, one student shared that Dr. Hynes had told a really depressing story about getting rejected by all of his colleges. {Sigh.} I am sure I did the best I could in the moment, especially considering there had been no plans for me to speak at that moment. I have shared this story of my college rejections many times with students, and it usually goes over well and leads them to feel less anxious about the process. I’m sure it did on this day as well. But I reflected afterward about some ways I might tell it a bit differently.

            I think I would start with the metaphor of life as a marathon. Because, after all, some students do not find their ideal fit in the first semester of college. My story speaks to the idea that we can find that fit even when we don’t think we have it. But in reality, it might take awhile for that to happen. Some students transfer, some find a better fit in their graduate school than in their undergraduate school, some need a gap year before going anywhere, and some find that not attending college at all is the best fit for now. The larger theme here is that our lives do not typically unfold exactly as we thought they would in December of our senior year. But it may take some patience and perseverance before we find the right track for us.

            I have two daughters who are commuting to college right now. Neither would tell you that these schools are the perfect spots they were dreaming of in senior year. But they would likely tell you that these are the schools they need right now, and they are grateful that they can drive 30 minutes from their home and attend a world-class university. The words “dream school” or “best fit” would not come up in their conversation with you, but they would tell you that they’re narrowing down their interests within their majors and they are growing as learners and as citizens of the world.

            They’re still early on in the marathon, with so much more ahead of them. Like the students I spoke with last week, they’re still figuring it all out. And our Gen Z students do not need anyone to tell them that everything works out perfectly, as per plan. They’ve witnessed enough horror in their short time on this earth to debunk that myth.

            Like most of us, they’re going to respond to the opportunity to listen, learn, share and grow. They’re in search of hope for their own lives and for the greater good. They want some fun, some joy, and some intellectual challenges. They might like a cool college logo on their sweatshirts as well, but that logo represents more than cachet. It symbolizes the fulfillment they hope to gain in this life, at this stage of the marathon and in the stages to come.

            So yeah, I would go a little deeper if given another crack at speaking to the seniors. Even so, I think they got the point in my shortened version. Hang in there, and don’t fret if your perceived dream doesn’t pan out. There are more possibilities out there than any of us can count. Where we go as human beings – that’s how we figure out who we’ll be.

The College Craze

            When my older daughter earned a C+ in Geometry Advanced as a freshman, it might have seemed to some like a disappointment. But to Katie (and her parents), it turned out to be a pretty big relief.

            With that one C+, Katie had likely removed herself from consideration for admission to the elite universities in America. And she had absolutely no problem with that.

            We are living through an educational era dominated by the competition of college admissions. Over the past two decades, universities have managed to lower their acceptance rates, increase their tuitions, and draw students and parents into a frenzy over which school will accept them, and what that will mean for their futures.

            Journalists such as Frank Bruni and Paul Tough have written eloquently about this topic, using research- and anecdotal-based evidence to show that this frenzy is unnecessary. Studies reveal that hard work and character mean more to an individual’s life success than which undergraduate school he or she attended. But that message has not been received by many.

            We’ve reached a point where college preparation is part of the focus even for middle-schoolers. The colleges are able to direct their admissions departments to consider not only GPA and standardized test scores for admissions decisions, but also courseload difficulty. This leads some students to take anywhere from four to six advanced classes per year. While there will always be some students for whom this is actually doable and enjoyable, there are many more for whom this means incredible stress and nowhere near enough sleep.

            The interesting thing about this college crunch is that no student knows for sure which university will be best for him or her. I am living proof of that. As I applied to colleges during the autumn of my senior year, I had never earned a grade lower than A, and was on my way to tying for the school’s highest GPA. I had pressured myself to study harder and harder throughout high school, and I expected the highest of rewards from college admissions offices.

            But when the responses came in, I was disappointed. Harvard said no. So did Princeton. And Brown. Georgetown, too. The University of Virginia added its own rejection.

            I was a valedictorian, yet I’d received more rejections than acceptances. As I enrolled in the University of North Carolina, I found myself disappointed and thought I was settling for less than I deserved. Of course, as I arrived in Chapel Hill, I immediately recognized that this was a special place. It was a school that asked me to work hard academically while also living a balanced life. I was expected to spend hours studying in Davis Library, yet also spend hours in line waiting for UNC-Duke basketball tickets. I was to write papers, but also write for the school newspaper. I sat for long lectures, but also sat down for dinner with my friends.

            If you had offered me, halfway through my freshman year, a spot at Princeton or Georgetown, I would have turned you down. Because I’d realized that the school I was attending was in fact the best fit for me. This was the place where I could grow in the ways I needed most. Back in high school, there was no way for me to know this for sure. I had to trust the process, and recognize that there was so much I didn’t know about my future needs.

            It’s so hard to recognize this when everyone else is talking about the college pressures. It’s hard to take a deep breath and believe that it will truly turn out fine, and that most of the undergraduate schools out there are actually offering tremendous opportunities for us to grow and feel challenged. It’s hard to realize that the schools many students attend for graduate school might actually mean more toward their career path, particularly with regard to location.

            As educators, we remain deeply concerned about the college crunch. We keep sharing current research along with our own experiences when we talk with students and parents. We hope that they hear our encouragement to live in the moment and stop checking the grade portal every hour. We encourage students to fully experience high school rather than “doing school.” We encourage them to recognize that whichever school they attend, there will be so much opportunity for success.

            As for my daughter, she has completed most of her applications, and has gone on most of her visits. She has a dream school, but knows it might not offer a financial package we can afford. She has other schools in mind as well. She wants to be a nurse, and knows there are many schools prepared to educate her well in that field. She has a guidance counselor who reassures her that she is on a path toward true success.

            I recently finished the payments that make me a lifetime alumni of the college I attended for undergraduate school. It wasn’t a huge payment, but it was a way of saying thank you to the school that gave me what I needed, even when I didn’t know that myself. It was a way of wishing that all our students could recognize that this is possible for each and every one of them. Hard work, character, an openness to new ideas, true friendships – these are the things we need as we grow, at all ages. If the university we attend encourages these things, we are in good hands. We will be just fine.

Decorating the Office

            I’ve never had an office before. Cubicles and classrooms defined the first 25 years of my working life, which was just fine, thank you. But as a school administrator, I get an office. It’s tiny, with most of the floor space taken up by a large desk, file cabinets and a bookcase. But there’s also plenty of wall space, and that’s where I had to make choices upon entering the room.

            What would I hang on the walls of my office? And what would that say about my values as an assistant principal? As students began entering the office during this first week of school, I happily gave them a tour.

            One wall was reserved for a series of Apple “Think Different” posters that my wife gave me during my first year of teaching, 19 years ago. I’ve had them up every year since, so there was no doubt that they would make their way into the room. They feature black-and-white photos of famous innovators, from Mahatma Gandhi to Amelia Earhart to Jim Henson to Pablo Picasso. The “Think Different” slogan has always fit into my core values as an educator, so I want students to see those words as often as possible.

            There are no diplomas on the walls, but there is a teacher award plaque and photos of my students, one of them a framed photo of a journalism class given to me last year by the students themselves. Another photo was sent to me from a just-graduated senior, who is studying abroad in her first semester of college and wanted me to see her enjoying a rugby game in New Zealand. Another photo shows students from the community service club I’ve advised, posing with a patient from Children’s Specialized Hospital during a dance marathon fund-raiser. With these snapshots from my teaching life, I hope to show students how much I care about their lives.

            There is a small, three-tiered table in a corner, which features an old-school typewriter on the top level, a reporter’s notebook and recorder on the second level, and a newspaper drawing on the bottom. The table reminds me of the journalism that serves as the foundation of my work experience, work ethic and work philosophy.

            The bookshelf features texts that support my work in education and adolescent development (from Carol Dweck’s Mindset to Susan Cain’s Quiet to Angela Duckworth’s Grit to Frank Bruni’s Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be), as well as books that encourage dialogue on social justice and community engagement (Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, James McBride’s The Color of Water). There are also books that remind me of how I grew into my role as an educator and thinker, from authors such as Jonathan Kozol, Anna Quindlen, Fred Rogers and Ralph Ellison.

            Outside my door, there are two dry-erase boards: One for students who need to leave me messages, and one featuring an inspirational quote of the day. On the first day of school, I posted a quote from the writer Rainer Maria Rilke: “And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”

            Beyond the innovators, snapshots, mementoes, books and words, there’s another piece to this room that serves as perhaps the most visible part of my office décor. On three of the walls, I have hung photos and drawings of bridges. Many of them depict the Brooklyn Bridge, which has long been my favorite New York City landmark. From poster-sized photos to New Yorker covers to a painting by my daughter, I surround myself with the 135-year-old architectural beauty that spans the East River because I find it incredibly inspiring.

But as a writer and English teacher, I also see a metaphor here. Adolescence is, in many ways, a bridge between childhood and adulthood. And administrators are often bridge-keepers who help connect students, faculty, parents and the overall community with one another. Finally, schools themselves are bridges, designed to help learners connect with one another, with academic disciplines, and with their own individual thoughts. We’re constantly building bridges for students as they share information, and also within students as they connect the dots between prior knowledge and new discoveries, between assumptions and reality, and between fact and fiction. In so many ways, educators are the engineers of personal growth, and it is our job to keep the pathways clear for students to make important crossings and to take the risk of reaching for the other side.

There are a lot of quotes out there supporting this metaphor, but I’ll leave you with one. During a lecture 55 years ago, Ralph Ellison said, “Education is all a matter of building bridges.” This seems as true to me today as it was to Ellison in 1963.

So yes, I have an office now. But the essence of my work remains the same as it ever was. In case I forget that, I’ve got the bridges to remind me.