I had flown down to St. Louis over the weekend for the #DigCitSummit and my layover in Chicago was met with a pleasant surprise. There were no less than 70-80 Navy sailors in full uniform. They looked beautiful and nearly surreal in their uniforms and groups. I had never seen sailors in real life and I found it difficult not to stare.
Some of them were on the flight with me to St. Louis and I followed them off the plane. When I was able to really look at them, I noticed how young they looked. They were clearly just coming back from boot camp. As per usual when I see someone in the military, I think about how they have enrolled in a program that protects our country and they put their lives on the line to protect me and my family. It makes me feel both proud and humbled.
However, this time I was on my way to a conference to discuss education and I started to think about how old they are. Maybe 19? Which means that the year prior, they had to ask to go to the bathroom. They had very little choice or freedoms. Ironically, they were now in a place to protect the thing that they didn’t have not that long prior. And it made me think…are we really setting our students up for all kinds of life after school?
Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe that we should be running our schools like a military boot camp. I’m more addressing the opportunities we give our students to show their maturity, make good choices, get to know themselves so well that they know after high school that they are making the right choices for themselves? Do we lay down rules for everyone when one or two students break them? Create a glass ceiling on our students? Understand that some of them are dealing with adult issues under the rules of being a child? Do we help them find their passions? Do we prepare our students so well that a year after high school that they could choose a career where they could be sent into battle?
My summer intern through our tech department joined the Air Force recently. I am so unbelievably proud of him and heartbroken all at the same time. He is an incredibly intelligent, put-together, wise-beyond-his-years young man, but I still pray that we have prepared him for the amazing but intense life choice he has made. Have we realized that post-high school our students need more than academics? Have we helped them develop resilience? Relentlessness? Self-worth? Discipline? Have we prepared them for life after high school, no matter what that life is?
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