Their Whole Lives Ahead ofTthem

Students make some big and life-changing decisions that they are at a very tender age to determine.

Dermot Gunn (a relative of a Deputy Headteacher I recently met) said …

“Unfortunately, children have to make the biggest decision of their life when they’re least capable to do so…”

I stumbled across an article talking about American students views on higher education and their ability to complete their course of education. You can find it at http://www.publicagenda.org/theirwholelivesaheadofthem

It made some interesting observations, specifically that 45% of the students in the USA worked longer than 20 hours per week whilst studying.

The study suggested that students leave school because the stress of work and study becomes too much as they put ‘themselves’ through school.

My interest though was focused on a couple of questions in the study…

The First Question

The question in the survey said “Did you always know that you were going to continue onto higher education?” This is essentially a question of their self belief…

• 67% of those that eventually DID NOT graduate said “YES – they did always know”
• 83% of those that DID eventually graduate said “YES – they did always know”.

This means that a significant percentage of students genuinely ‘believed’ that they could and would make it to the next level.

The Second Question

“My teacher in high school probably thought I would go onto higher education”

• 68% of teachers said YES about those students that eventually DID not graduate
• 83% of teachers said YES about those students that DID go on to graduate

The measurement is all about what they ‘probably thought’ and therefore it’s all about ‘belief’ and certainty that the student is going to do something…

You can NEVER prove that they will, or won’t, but to me the level of ‘belief’ is the biggest measure of anything…

Let’s face it, life is tough, it will require mammoth sacrifices and it is your level of belief that gets people to succeed.

I’ll make a small bet that the time that YOU achieved most in your life was not when you were necessarily rich or poor, it was just when you most wanted to !!

We can all find examples of the most fortunate students that did ‘make it’ and equally there are the examples of students who have ‘made it’ from seemingly nothing.

Henry Ford said:

“If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right”.

Life is all about desire and ambition and achieving your potential.

This is what we focus on with www.thebigpicture.eu.com