It鈥檚 the time of year when thousands of excited teenagers are launching into their post-high-school experience and learning about whatever this next step in their 颅education will demand.
While almost 90 per cent of Grade 12 students claim to be planning to take post-secondary training of some kind, we know actual participation rates in education after high school are lower.
For example, while about 55 per cent of Grade 12 students (and their parents) will say that completion of a university degree is the next step, only about 17 per cent of 颅91原创s ages 18 to 24 are enrolled full-time at a university at any one time.
That transition from high school to 颅university can present unique and 颅significant challenges academically, socially and personally.
Graduating from high school and going to one of Canada鈥檚 universities (or colleges or institutes of technology) can be a difficult transition for many students, even for those who did well in their Grade 12 courses.
Let鈥檚 assume that the problems involved in making the transition from high school apply equally to all forms of post-secondary education, but for the sake of brevity, I鈥檒l use the transition to university as my main example for this column.
The first and possibly most important step in this transition is for everyone, 颅parents included 鈥� especially parents 鈥� to understand that it鈥檚 normal for kids in their first year at a post-secondary school of any kind to encounter obstacles and difficulties that moving from elementary school to high school simply did not present.
Consequently, the transition period from high school to university can last for weeks or even months for even the best-prepared kids.
Even at that, it is safe to assume that things, both academically and socially, will not work out exactly as originally imagined.
The most meticulous planning for 颅accommodation, program choice, course selection and adjustment to a new academic and social environment requires taking time to adjust expectations and then to deal with the development of new (and equally 颅challenging) expectations if necessary.
That, almost inevitably, involves some flexibility in modifying what was originally thought to be a comfortable daily class and activity schedule while learning to manage the kind of stress not previously 颅experienced even on the most difficult days in high school.
It鈥檚 all part of the experience for the 颅first-year student struggling to figure out how to navigate a path through this new and unfamiliar learning and social landscape.
The new school and often living-away-from-home experience also involves 颅becoming comfortable with making the kind of personal decisions that were never part of the high-school-education landscape.
That, in turn, will involve coming to terms with the responsibility for understanding which study times are the most productive and at which times it is simply best to pack it up for now and go for a long exploration of the campus, or even the new city or town in which the university is situated.
Then there is learning to read all over again.
Post-secondary education, no matter what the program or the courses selected, will involve reading 鈥� a lot of reading and 颅sometimes re-reading text and passages already read.
New subject matter will almost certainly involve unfamiliar words and complicated sentence and paragraph structure often 颅written by topic or subject specialists, not writing specialists.
Endless patience and perseverance is required in pursuing and understanding new ideas. It is at this point that assistance from an academic adviser is essential.
That鈥檚 because no matter what the course of study, content or textbook, the first-year student will be introduced to unfamiliar or abstract concepts not encountered in the assigned texts at high school.
That uncertainty requires setting aside the automatic 鈥渢his doesn鈥檛 make sense鈥� and 鈥淚鈥檓 not up for this 鈥� I鈥檓 out of my depth鈥� response in favour of 鈥渢his somehow must make sense or it would not be part of the course 鈥� my job is to find that meaning or sense.鈥�
Again, seek an adviser. That is 颅essential. Every university provides an adviser 颅program, but sometimes first-year students are reluctant to seek that assistance for fear they will be identified as potential failures.
Some course work may include detailed technical material, including complicated directions, abstract principles or 颅materials on which the student has scant, if any, 颅background.
That can be frustrating, even 颅disheartening for the student who, up until this point in their educational progress, has never experienced any difficulty in decoding the thinking behind the course content.
But as Clark Kerr, the 12th president of the University of California, once described the university experience: 鈥淭he university is not engaged in making ideas safe for 颅students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.鈥�
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
