So everyone (my son, Mitch, his wife, Melissa, and five-year-old Cris went off for the afternoon to La Paz, about an hour from here (Todos Santos). I opted to stay home where the quiet is wonderful. F0r the last hour I’ve been reading articles on The Gap Year, some from the US, some from England. I’m hoping to link to a whole bunch of them on the Let’s Get Global website (the one that I’m still working on). It doesn’t make sense for me to restate what has many times been so eloquently and passionately expressed.
I may take a couple of sentences from each article and then put in the link.
The hardest arguments to present are the ones that are based on statistics. There really are none. Oh, there’s the one that says young people who do a gap year are more likely to stay in college and graduate. And there’s the one often cited that 30% of college students drop out. Others say between 20 and 30%. And some go lower and some higher. In making an argument for funding, statistics are crucial. And no one has statistics, even about how many gappers there are. It’s kind of sticky to quote statistics if there are none that are official.
Last night over dinner, Mitch suggested, Think big, start small. I’m thinking he’s right. Maybe Let’s Get Global should start with, say twelve schools from different segments of the population and diverse geographical locations. Together we could create and initiate a plan, tweak it for the different populations, but basically keep it the same. After a few years we will have statistics of our own that we can present to a lot more schools around the country. And each year we could expand the number of schools involved.
I’d love comments and perhaps some suggestions of schools that you think would be good test communities. We’d like to take the test across economic, racial, urban, rural boundaries so we can come up with a strong picture of what happens when we bring our ideas into different areas. Our campaign in each community would be designed to include guidance counselors, student clubs, events, local fundraising ideas (for scholarships), and fundraising projects for the students, etc.
Would any of you reading this like to get involved in making this happen in a school in your community? It would be pretty exciting to be a part of the initial twelve. Please write to me at: info@letsgetglobal.org And feel free to comment here as well. Thanks, Rita