There are very few achievements in our culture that are valued as much as the high school diploma. And rightly so, for the high school diploma serves two critically important functions:
It certifies a minimum standard of competence in academic skills and knowledge.
It serves as a rite of passage indicating a student’s readiness to take on the freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood.
One of these functions is a helpful convenience to prospective employers and postsecondary educators. The other is absolutely critical to the health and future of our society. A person can become a responsible and contributing adult without knowing algebra, but not without the very real sense that he or she is a valued and irreplaceable member of our community.
A problem I see is that we are emphasizing the certification role of the high school diploma at the expense of its role as a legitimate rite of passage into free and responsible adulthood. As a result, about one-third of our students are leaving school with the message that they are unwanted and unneeded failures. Think of the price our community pays through the loss of the precious gifts, strengths and participation of these young people, not to mention the price paid by the students themselves!
We need to reclaim the high school diploma as an achievable rite of passage for all our young people. We can do this by:
Personalizing the high school experience to continue emphasizing responsibility and achievement, but in a diverse range of areas depending on the strengths and aptitudes of each student. This means that the high school diploma will mean different things for different individuals, reflecting the real diversity our students bring to the classroom, as well as the diversity that a fully-functioning community actually needs.
Refusing to allow high-stakes testing or an overly rigid curriculum to become insurmountable obstacles to graduation. Of course we need standards. They are essential guides for the work we do. But they are just that — guides — and not meant to become straight-jackets of uniformity that keep us from meeting the needs of all students.
We could maintain the skill certification role of the high school diploma by allowing students to earn “certificates of excellence” in the various content areas they master, much like the merit badge system used in scouting. These certificates would be in addition to the general diploma and would serve as useful indicators of the unique constellation of strengths each student brings to life beyond high school.
While continuing to uphold high standards of responsibility and achievement, the new high school diploma will apply these standards to a different array of strengths and accomplishments for each student. These strengths will then represent the special contributions each student is able to make as they discover and take their valued place in our larger community.
Not all students have the same academic abilities, but all students can achieve excellence, all students can become responsible and contributing citizens, and all students can enter adulthood with a sense of gratitude, belonging and connection that will last a lifetime. This is the foundation that a high school diploma must provide.
Jim Strickland is a Marysville resident and a teacher at Marysville Pilchuck High School.
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