Summer learning losses are a real threat to all students entering the summer months. Providing kids with educational games, activities, materials, and experiences during their summer vacation is crucial in retaining information learned during the school year and preparing them for the transition into next year.
The Class of 2012 has reason to celebrate. They’re among the 56% of college students who stuck it out and finished a college degree in under 6 years,1 they found their calling, and they are prepared to make an impact on the world. However, with rising student debt, a volatile job market, and an overall uncertain economic future, many students may also be leaving with anxiety about entering the workforce.
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Kids who aren’t involved in summer learning activities suffer the greatest learning losses in math and reading. Underprivileged students who have less learning resources available to them during the school year and the summer months are put at an increased disadvantage, setting them back from their more affluent peers and increasing the achievement gap. Low-income parents who aren’t involved often suffer in exposure, awareness, and sometimes their own opportunity to prepare for the GED, community college, or better employment.
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Many college students are lining up internships for the summer months or the coming semester. Some college graduates are also getting internships to further their professional experience after college and possibly get their foot in the door in careers and fields they have recently narrowed to match their interests and abilities.
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It’s a harsh reality: average workers will have a much harder time in today’s economic climate. The competition is heating up and those who are exceptional will have traction, gratification and fulfillment in the workforce.
Average workers don’t put in the extra that sets them apart from other members of the team, whereas exceptional workers draw energy from harnessing their unique abilities. It may sound like becoming an exceptional worker will be much more depleting than putting in average effort, but, in fact, it’s the opposite. People who feel “very successful” and “completely successful” at work are twice as likely to say they are happy than those who only feel “somewhat successful,” with their level of income making no difference in their levels of happiness, according to Arthur Brooks in the article “America and the Value of ‘Earned Success.’”1 Exceptional people are driven to become exceptional for its intrinsic value (in happiness and fulfillment), not extrinsic value (in dollars and status).
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The world of work is ever- changing. However, new graduates will experience a heightened level of change over the span of their careers, as technology becomes more integrated and new software, tools, and gadgets make their work more efficient and far reaching. Add to that the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of today’s young people who will be launching many of the new businesses which will fuel our economic growth over the next several decades in areas that don’t yet exist, and it could be hard to predict what the workforce will look like in 20, or even 10, years.
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This Saturday, my oldest nephew, Carson, graduates from college. Twenty-eight years ago to the day, I graduated from the same university. As I think about the last twenty-eight years, I realize how many things have changed and how many ways life has improved, despite our challenges.
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In past cycles of the U.S. economy, a college degree — or even a high school diploma — could be enough for a job seeker to land a well-paying position that afforded them staples of an American lifestyle, such as home and car ownership, leaving home as a teen or young adult, and starting a family. In the new economy, with high unemployment rates for teens and adults, neither a college degree or high school diploma comes with a job guarantee, and many young adults are reacting by living with their parents longer, delaying marriage and child birth and indefinitely postponing large purchases. 1
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Thirty years ago this summer, I was finishing my first unpaid internship in Washington, D.C with Common Cause, a lobbying group run at the time by Archibald Cox, John Gardner of Stanford, and, at times, Ralph Nader. The next year, the report, A NATION AT RISK1, was issued as I began my internship in New York City at the Academy for Educational Development. During both summers, I waited on tables at night to be able to work for no pay at my valuable internships. This report was commissioned by the then President Ronald Reagan. I distinctly remember one of the most defining lines of that document: The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.
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Recessions, ebb and flow. Between 1948 and 2011, there have been 10 recessions, according the National Bureau of Economic Research1. That means there are many people in the U.S. who have been in all 10 recessions and made their way out. The BLS describes a recession as: “A general slowdown in economic activity, a downturn in the business cycle, a reduction in the amount of goods and services produced and sold.”