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[anthrodocz]

My first reaction to Rona Wilensky's Apr. 27 Commentary  "For Some High-School Students, Going to College Isn't the Answer"  was, "Too bad this person stopped teaching just when it started to work!"   What I heard in the commentary was quite a different message than suggested by article's title.   

The author presented a scene in which one model of teaching-- a die-hard model of "I'm teaching it but they aren't getting it" proportions--was giving way to a model based on student learning and how it will actually take root.  And just when the author saw the opportunity to step into a different model (it seemed, in an atmosphere of "one last experiment, nothing to lose before I go"), it was timed with her departure from college teaching!  This kind of risk-taking in approaching new strategies for teaching should be a starting point rather than a final twist for college teaching careers. 

And so, it doesn't seem to me that the message here is, as the title suggests, "For Some High School Students, Going to College Isn't the Answer."  Instead it is a message about breaking out of die-hard models of "teaching," that have over time proven less than successful, and focusing on strategies to help students to learn whether in high school, college, vocational training, or life-long learning endeavors.

Brian Donohue-Lynch
Quinebaug Valley Community College
Prof. of Anthropology and Sociology
Learning Assessment