I have a confession to make: I've always been a little bit creeped out by those people who are absolutely certain about what they want to do.
Not that I'm saying there is anything wrong about having a concrete plan for the future. For the people who can pull that off, more power to them. I suppose it takes a kind of confident insight that I just do not have.
But I would be lying if I said I didn't shiver a little whenever I meet someone who is, say, pre-med, and has been pre-med ever since coming to Dartmouth, and has planned to be a pre-med ever since middle school, and has built his or her whole life around being a pre-med and, eventually, becoming a post-med of one kind or another. I always worry that there is a faint whiff of predetermination in the air, and I cannot help but wonder what other opportunities may have fallen before the overwhelming march of "the plan."
As for myself, it took me a long time to come up with any plan whatsoever. I spent years checking the little "undecided" boxes, and if I had waited any longer to file a major I might have been left pounding on the registrar's door in a manner reminiscent of the climax of "The Graduate."
All of this probably goes a long way in explaining why I had such a visceral negative reaction to Florida's new plan to require high school students to declare majors and minors. But there are other important reasons to worry about this development besides my own biases.
To give you an idea of what is being proposed, upon entering high school, freshmen in Florida would have to declare a major and a minor from among such fields as the humanities, English, communications, math, science, social studies, art, foreign languages, and vocational skills. Their major choices would then shape the subjects they studied over the next four years, with students being required to take certain major courses in addition to a stripped-down core curriculum.
The Florida House has already approved the new proposal, voting 85-35 along straight party lines. Florida Governor Jeb Bush told CNN that these changes are needed because: "We don't want them [students] to drop out of school or be unprepared to take on the challenges of the 21st century. It's a really smart way to make high school more relevant and prepare young people for what college will hold."
While I share his concerns, I think that Gov. Bush is on the wrong track. I have no doubt that a small percentage of students would benefit from a more focused education. There will always be a few people with an unalterable sense of what they want to do who would welcome the chance to shape their educations to meet their own goals.
But I worry about the rest of Florida's students, who may not have that kind of certainty. For most people, high school is the time to start discovering their interests, strengths and weaknesses. Asking 13- and 14-year-olds to make these kinds of weighty decisions is likely to backfire, and students who find themselves shunted into the wrong categories are likely to lose interest and question the value of their educations. In short, they are likely to fall into exactly those traps that Bush claims he wants them to avoid.
Try asking yourself the question: If you had been forced to declare a major upon entering high school, what would you have picked? How might that have changed where you are today? I myself know that as a high school freshman, I probably would have checked math on that card. I doubt I would have ever discovered journalism and joined the high school paper. I also doubt I would have sampled debate and psychology. And if I had entered college on a predetermined math track, I doubt I would have ever stumbled upon international relations.
Also, there is a lot to be said for stressing a broad, basic high school curriculum instead of emphasizing specialization. If students don't learn the basics about math, writing, science, reading, history, government and economics in high school -- to say nothing of basic life skills, like balancing a checkbook -- it will only be harder to pick them up later. High school is supposed to arm people with basic tools, which then give them the ability to learn and succeed in many different areas within academia and the workplace.
The American system of education certainly has its weaknesses, but one of its strengths was that students were expected to master a wide variety of basic skills and common knowledge, rather than being shunted off into specialty schools or technical academies at an early age. The Florida plan represents a step toward that more European model, which, rather than giving students more freedom, ultimately narrows their horizons.
There are plenty of problems with America's public schools, but turning our high schools into bastardized mini-colleges is not the solution. While there is nothing wrong with giving students some ability to shape their courses to match their needs, the essentials of basic education should not be sacrificed upon the altar of specialization.
