Career Readiness and Digital Learning: A personal view

Last week we announced the release of the Digital Learning Collaborative’s latest study, exploring “The Intersection of Career Readiness and Digital Learning.” In a related blog post, I explained the first two of three reasons I found this study so engaging. First, the innovative work being done by so many of our DLC members was amazing to see in print. Second, the study lays out the intersection between digital learning and career learning really nicely—a topic that we will discuss on next week’s DLC webinar.

That column ended with the comment that I would explain the third reason I found the study gratifying in a future post—this one.

I don’t often get into my personal story and views in blog posts, or at least I try to lead with the data and stories we’re seeing from the field, adding my thoughts along the way. This post is different, and I hope that readers will indulge me in this story.

Julie Young, founder of FLVS and now running ASU Prep Digital, once said to me “I think everyone in our field got into it because they either loved or hated school when they were students.”

To which I replied: “Put me on the HATED side.”

I did not have a good experience in high school. I was bored, alienated, and disengaged. I was also struggling with a serious physical health problem, which had more of an impact socially and emotionally than I realized at the time.

Despite all that, I did fine academically. The main reason is my parents were always strongly supportive of both me and education. They modeled curiosity, in the form of reading, stimulating travel, and interest in my pursuits and studies. The secondary reason was the support of a few key teachers, and a baseball coach.

With that support I got through high school. But over time I became increasingly aware of just how close I came to not getting out of high school, or at least not getting out in good shape, with a diploma and a future path. Change who my parents were, take away those teachers and coach, and I’m not sure how things would have played out. A negative outcome, perhaps a highly negative outcome, would have been possible if not likely.

I was bored and disengaged by an educational system that held little interest to me, because I saw little connection to myself and my future. A few key people bolstered me, but they operated despite the system—not supported by it in any way.

That’s why I take a particular interest in the schools now that are truly supporting students at a systems level. Many of these are online or hybrid, although some are not. These schools engage students in two main ways. One is through the relationships that these schools prioritize. The second way is through connecting students with their interests, pursuits, and dreams.

Sometimes these interests are separate from jobs and internships, but often they have a career focus. Students may be motivated by taking college classes, by internships, by jobs. These opportunities build intrinsic motivations in these students, who see their future before them, and want to work to build that future.

We’ve heard these accounts from students that we have interviewed and surveyed, individually and in focus groups. These are students who could have dropped out of school, at best setting themselves back years, if not permanently. Behind every student who continued instead of dropping out, often because they found an internship, a job, or a pursuit, is the school that created that opportunity.

The schools that the study highlights are doing this work, creating these opportunities, in new ways, for all students. They are showing how it can be done, and we’re thrilled to highlight them.

Because I don’t want any student, ever, to feel how I felt in high school.