After Giving My speech at YouthCare

On July 7th I nervously stood in front of a long table with twenty or so young adults and about eight staff members in a room in Wellesley, MA. I was there to talk about high school, college and about choosing a job that may be good for you. All the kids were like minded, meaning they had Asperger's, and there were a couple girls in the mix. I talked about this and that and answered a few key questions along the way. I related the best I could to them about what I had been through, what to look out for and what to try for themselves. I could see by the faces, not just those in the program but those running it, that I had a perspective and ideas that they might not have thought of. Out of any speech I had even given this was the most fun.

It did not feel like work and I didn't feel like ending. Did I mess up or maybe forget a couple things? Of course I did. Did I help a bunch of kids who needed a guide to show them the way, how to walk the path and maybe ease some of the anxieties and questions they may have had? You bet! In the end I looked up at the clock and realized I had been in front of the audience for an hour and fifteen minutes. Even as part of a group presentation in college I had not been up for that long, and this time I did all the speaking. In that time I think I got my message across. I talked with the woman who ran the program afterwards and I picked up that I would be able to do the same thing again next year. I told her I'd come back in a heartbeat.

I may have found my calling.

K-12 online schooling?

So today I heard a commercial for k-12 online schooling. Upon hearing it two things came to mind: This could be a good thing for kids who don't fit in (guess who) and this could ruin a child's ability to learn social interaction at a young age. I went to the website to check it out. It seems like a good concept at first but like all things there are two sides. There is a list of courses that can be signed up for and they differ from K-8 to high school.

I did see some courses that were not offered at my own high school, at least not in the depth, so that is a bonus. I looked at the fees for each course, some which did not seem that much but things tend to add up when your talking about a full schedule, and there were also fees for courses with supplemental instruction from a teacher. This seems like it could present a problem if parents had to either: ask the town to take their own kids off public schooling so that they could be taxed less and able to pay for it, and public schools running out of funding or needing more assistance from the government due to less enrollment. I am sure this is a good concept in terms of learning and was probably tested. Lets take a look at the social aspects of it.

When I went to school, we were all in a classroom with a teacher and told what to do. We would interact with one another and do presentations and have some unique lessons and go on field trips and clubs, have school wide events. Odd right? This seemed to work fine since school began back in antiquity. I'll admit that I had a tough time getting along with some kids and that I was bullied, with words only. But the key things I learned were not of facts long forgotten, they were with people. I learned how kids behave and what is right and wrong, about making friends and respecting adults (even though I sometimes didn't want to). I feel that many of the social aspects of school will be lost if things transitioned towards the online environment.

Besides baseball I never went over friends houses to hang out, except for school work, or get into the sort of trouble that is present at that age. I made that choice. I could just have easily decided against it but that is not the path I chose. I can't help thinking about what type of person I would have become if I had not met some of the great people I know from high school and Worcester Academy. I could have been forced to play dates with other kids by my parents. They would ask me and I most always said no. They may have given me no choice if I had been schooled online

Even more shocking a question is remains: Where would I have played high school baseball? Does this company have sports teams in place? How would I have gotten into college? My grades alone surely would not have been enough.

Some people I know are slaves to computers and video games. They don't interact with others as much as they could and they sit around losing their given abilities to compete physically.

So what do you think on this matter? It's clearly a double edged sword but are you really getting what you paid for? Do you even know what you're paying for? Could I be totally wrong and this is the best thing for some kids who don't ft it.

I stand by the fact that this concept is not right for everyone, even if they can afford it.