Next Up - College ?

With the end of the school year approching slowly for the class of 2019 high school seniors, the pressure of May 1st final college decision thickens, and young scholars prepare to make changes in their prospering lives. The time to decide whether the years out of high school will be in college or not is upon them.

I had the opportunity to speak with an educator himself, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, a well known journalist and Steve Charles professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hill graduated from George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science (E&S for short) the year of 1996. E&S is one of Philadelphia’s renowned blue ribbon magnet schools, a school based on the sciences and mathematics, pushing kids to strive both academically and personally.

He then went on to continue his education at Morehouse College and then transferred to Temple University, receiving his B.S. in education and science. Later, he received his PhD in education at the University of Pennsylvania. Hill is an award winning journalist who has been acknowledged by the National Association of Black Journalist. He is currently a host of BET News as well.

This interview was an opportunity to gain an idea of what it means to attend a public magnet school from a renowned educator.

Did you feel like E&S prepared you for the college process?

“It did. I think E&S in some ways was exceptional but it did in a few ways. College was something we talked about, from day one. The idea of advertising that there was 100 % college acceptance it made me feel like college was something I was supposed to be doing.”

Hill went on to describe E&S PSAT practice that begins when students start freshman year. The school makes sure students know the scholastic aptitude test (SAT) is extremely important if attending college is a goal.

“It was also the counseling, the guidance counselors.”

Guidance counselors can play an important role in a student’s life. Providing resources for teens that they may not be able obtain out of school.

Counselors meet with students individually to discuss goals beyond high school, sending out scholarship information, and being there to assist students with whatever they need.

The role that guidance counselors play has a great benefit to students. Although counselors are important to a child's experience in high schools there are public schools that are unable to provide a sufficient guidance counselor student ratio, compared to that of magnet schools. School that offer special instruction and programs that aren't available to other public schools. This often time leaves students overlooked in times of need.

“And guidance counselor access, that was probably the biggest thing. I had friends that went to schools like south Philly or Gratz where they had guidance counselors but they didn't really have access to them and college was prioritized from the administrative standpoint.”

Hill believed that guidance cookers played a significant role in students lives as they still do today as well.

“And then of course the actual training. I took 4 years of Spanish at E&S; the district only required two years so by the time I got to college I was ready to take on Spanish very easily, or do a new language, I had a certain kind of training , the writing skill I develop in English were helpful.”

With the vigorous work load at HSES, students are exposed to a curriculum that constantly challenges them. With a multitude of sciences courses, AP courses, and up to three years of language training, students are pushed to exceed expectation.

Hill could recall leaving the school feeling well round preparing him for a college workload.

In the beginning did you feel like college was for you, or it was a family thing?

College is valued tremendously to a lot of people, it can be decision made solely on you or your family. Being that Hill attended a high school that is well known for its college acceptances, asking him about his decision to attend college provided the perspective of a student.

“It's hard to separate the two from me because my parents went to college, they were teachers,I was raised in an environment where going to college was just what you did, and people who didn't go to college , there was nothing wrong with them but it wasn't seen in my house as the ideal choice for us it was stated very matter of factly that I was gonna go, because of that i just never thought of anything differently. So I never had space necessarily to ask myself if this what I want vs is this what my family wants.”

Have you ever had a discussion with a friend or you felt like their high school proplebly wasn't doing as much?

“Ya, most of my friends didn't go to magnet schools, in the neighborhood I grew up in most went to Overbrook (High School), Lamberton, Gratz, King, Lincoln, and Washington.”

“When I saw what they were learning sometimes I was like ‘oh wow there’s a gap here’ even my friends who did Overbrook honor program (motivation program). A lot of them were not getting the level of instruction in English, Spanish, French, and Math. They just didn't have the offerings, it wasn't that they were not smarter or didn't work hard enough they just didn't have the chance they didn't have the offerings. When you don't have the course offerings you can't do it.”

Unfortunately there are public schools in Philadelphia that do not provide access to better educational opportunities for students. Seeing what little opportunities are offered for students who do not attended public magnet schools teaches the value of appreciation. In the knowledge you obtain and what you do with it. I watched the teacher turn over. I took for granted that my teachers were pretty much going to be there.”

“So the kids weren’t pushed from day one, and those who were on the fence of going to college, the kids who had straight A's or the valedictorian they find their ways to college, because the counselors and the teachers make sure they do and those kids often have parents who are already active and engaged, and so those kids turn out okay.”

Education is not always what we learn in school, it has so many versions of itself. We learn something new every day, either about ourselves or the world around us.

Knowledge is something that has no limit and can be consumed all of the time.

What does expanding on education mean to you?

“Expanding my education for me was always important. It's interesting even though I wasn’t necessarily a good student. I think the reason was partly because I was not engaged I was lazy, I was more interested in basketball, but it was also because a lot of the learning I did was outside of school.”

“I was reading books at black book stores I was doing stuff like that, in some ways E&S helped nurture that for me. Because E&S talked about other places they didn't make me feel like the only place I could learn was in school and when I brought things in from out of school my teachers for the most part respected those sources too. So as I went through my educational journey.”

“I think that idea should be shot through all of education so that we don't just center or exclusivity identity what happens in school as the place where learning should happen school should be more than that piting to other sources of knowledge other bodies of knowledge that people can really get a full well rounded education.”

What is often times taken for granted is the very access to an education. The decision to continue it through college or not is one for students to make themselves, but continuing to better ourselves with knowledge can be done anywhere.

Knowledge is the one thing no one can take away from you. It forces you to grow, eventually evolving to someone who possess wisdom that can be passed along to the next.

Hill provided an understanding of what it means to be exposed to education and how to seize it in that very moment.