On an uncommonly humid day in February, Gateway Middle School 6th graders hiked north and west to the University of San Francisco. Two matriculated college guides met the students, then walked them through the campus and answered questions about college life. Freedom from parents, a dorm room, and the food court topped the students’ favorite subjects in equal measure. Amongst the questions were inquiries into different fields of study, technology used in the classrooms, and how late one might order pizza.
Why introduce college to 11- and 12-year old students? A lot of it comes down to expectations. Research shows that maintaining high expectations of students leads to higher student motivation. It is crucial to intervene in these more formative years with enriching and motivating curricula because a student’s level of engagement and performance in middle school determines so much of the student’s performance after high school.
Another reason for introducing college in the early years is that exposure alone can help students envision themselves in a college setting. For some Gateway students, this simple paradigm shift can be a life-altering event.
“Many of our students do not have an immediate member of their family who has been to college,” said Suzanne Herko, a 6th grade Humanities teacher instrumental in writing the charter for Gateway Middle School. “This is one way we help make college a concrete aspiration for our students. The teachers [at Gateway Middle School] make themselves available, as we begin college discussions, so that every student has an adult with whom they can ask questions.”
Gateway Middle School takes each grade on separate field trips to colleges in the Bay Area. This year the 6th graders explored the University of San Francisco; the 7th graders went to San Francisco State University, and the 8th graders traveled to Stanford. Some take it more seriously than others, but there is an air of awe and wonder about it all as soon as the guides step in and start sharing what it’s like to be there.
“It’s important to let middle school students know what is ahead of them,” added Ms. Herko. “It not only gives them something to look forward to, but something to work toward, as well. These field trips are only one facet of school-wide discussions of what colleges offer and how to get there.”
These discussions and field trips help cultivate a student’s growth mindsets on long-range achievement (for more on mindset, see Dr. Jude Wolf’s excellent breakdown on our website). Gateway believes and has seen again and again, that all students are capable of learning at high levels. For some, that means learning how they learn to maximize classroom and one-on-one instruction time. Ironically, for many students, the end goals of going to college and achieving dreams is really the beginning of the process.