What is REALLY best for a student?

PSCS Staff Meeting | 05/21/2008 | 4:00 – 5:30 pm | Attendees: Director,
Administrative Director, 2 Teaching Staff members, myself

At this week's staff meeting the focus lay on a particular student who has been at the school for 5 years now. Not all students arrive self-motivated and independent at PSCS. However, in a period of 3-5 years they become more self-directed in their learning. They carry more responsibility for their actions, find a passion and grow into community leaders. The particular student being discussed used to be an advisee of mine when I taught at PSCS full-time. She hasn't grown at PSCS in the ways that most students do. In fact, over the last 2 years we have come to question whether PSCS is the right learning environment for her. This student needs even more one-on-one instruction than can be provided even at PSCS and in a single area of passion that she might pursue longer term. It has come to the attention of the current staff and her insightful advisor that this student is probably best suited to leave PSCS and pursue hands-on vocational training of some kind. To this end, her advisor has been putting her in touch with some professionals in her area of passion.

As the school year closes, this student needs to move on, accepting her new future, one that is different from the one she imagined. She will not be returning to PSCS next year. This is hard for her to accept and for the school to accept too. However, that is what is right for this student.

I applaud the staff at PSCS for always keeping at the front of their minds what they think is best for the student no matter how hard that is to do. In this situation, as I have seen to be the case in others, what is best for the student is also best for the school and its community. It is often hard to see that and believe it.  It take courage to do what is best for the student and know that it will result in goodness all around. If we could always keep our students and their interests front-and-center (of course, within reasonable limits of not causing harm or unkindness to others) I wonder how it might transform the nature of education?