Click here to subscribe today or Login.
The return to school is in full swing, and before you rush to check your calendar while grumbling you were sure your kids didn’t go back until next week or even after Labor Day, in this case “school” means elementary, high school and college.
Think of them all as one continuum, not as separate stages of a person’s education. The lines have been blurring for decades, and are almost certainly destined to disappear.
High school students increasingly have the opportunity to attend college classes — or at least get college credits — while earning those high school diplomas. Colleges and universities regularly offer course work, week-long camps and other opportunities to give students a taste of higher ed while still finishing lower grades.
Education always has been a lifelong activity; the formal education system is simply catching up to that reality. Adults return to school for a class here or there, or for an entire degree. Students may prepare for careers in a variety of settings.
Take nursing. Courses are offered in career and technical schools originally designed for high school students, or at community colleges, or at traditional colleges with programs that can run four, five or six years. They can attend one and transfer to the other. They can get degrees in stages or in the traditional, full-time style.
Online learning further blurs the distinctions among grades, particularly when students can mix class and computer learning, day courses, night courses and weekend or summer sessions.
This is all good. The demands of the working world have long outgrown the rigid notion of separate education silos: elementary, high school, undergraduate, graduate. “Continuing education” has gone from being the rarefied purview of a few professionals seeking to sustain certifications to something we all pursue (or at least should), all our lives.
The notion that once you get a specific diploma you can stop learning and start working is dead. Thanks to internships, apprenticeships, student service programs and school/business partnerships, the notion that you have to get a specific diploma before starting to work in a specific field is also dying.
So, yeah, when King’s College students started moving in last weekend, school started. It starts when Misericordia first-year students move in today. It starts on any of several move-in days for different facets of Wilkes University’s student body.
It starts Aug. 28 when six of Luzerne County’s 11 school districts have their first day of classes, and Aug. 29, Aug. 30, Sept. 5, Sept 6 and Sept. 7 when the other five districts take turns opening their doors.
So welcome back, all, everywhere, whenever it’s your turn to get up and get out to that first day of class or log in for that first online session. But most of you were already in session, somehow, somewhere, before this page of your ongoing education turned.
So it’s not only a “welcome back,” It’s also a “keep up the good work.”