Sunday, November 21, 1999
Childhood should not be a college prep course
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A recent article in Smart Money magazine described a New Jersey mom who studied college guides and learned that some elite schools coveted rowers and fencers. She immediately enrolled her 7-year-old in a fencing class.
“I tell my friends now, for God's sake get your daughter out of field hockey and into ice hockey or fencing,” she said.
If I'd only known that years ago. I'd have yanked my 13-year-old out of tee ball and gotten him that coveted Zorro model foil-and-epee starter set. It's like they always say: If you can walk, you can parry. My 10-year-old would never have played soccer. She'd be. . . rowing.
How many years have my kids wasted playing with their friends, when they could have been taking oboe lessons? At Williams College in Massachusetts, 52 percent of the Class of 2002 are “Berkshire Symphony-level musicians,” according to Smart Money.
Why bother with exploring woods or building forts when you can be learning the bassoon?
If I'd only known.
“At one level, there is this misguided notion that if junior attends College X, his future is golden,” said John Anderson, dean of admissions at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, “and if he doesn't, he'll have a miserable life.”
Here's a question: How great is his young life anyway, when he has to spend it blowing the French horn, working at the Drop In Center, taking advanced placement math, running track and anchoring the chess club?
It was fairly simple to get into college 25 years ago. Finish in the top 25 percent of your high school class. Play a sport. Join a club. Include an idealistic essay with your application. Wait for a thick envelope from the admissions department.
Not now. Now, we as parents have gone insane. That resume and 50 cents would get you a job at USA Today, proofreading the weather page. Red means hot, boys and girls!
The goal then, as now, was to be well-rounded. Only now, well-rounded has become slump-shouldered, as the high-achievers are whacked by the pressures of high-achieving. Getting into the college of your choice seems no less an ordeal than making the Olympic gymnastics team.
I suppose being a crack violinist beats hanging out with friends on weekends. But here are questions you won't find on anyone's admissions application:
What happened to allowing kids the freedom to develop a sense of wonder, and a full and clear curiosity? What they discover on their own is often what they learn best. But it won't get them into Swarthmore.
On the way to making the perfect college applicant, what becomes of creativity? Creativity requires thought. Thought requires reflection. Reflection requires time. Who has time?
Said Mr. Anderson: “Parents start thinking as early as middle school: What would make my child stand out? What they don't realize is there is no answer to that. It may change every year.”
After 15 years of fine and diligent work on the bassoon, little Sydney's parents were crushed to learn that their daughter's school of choice desperately needed French horn players.
Who could know?
I used to think the only places parents were nuts were at baseball fields and basketball gyms. Not anymore. If I were a kid now, a debate-teaming, epee-parrying, community serving, over-programmed, oboe-fied robot, I'd be suing my parents for malpractice and demanding a childhood as restitution.
I might not get into Yale, though.
Paul Daugherty, an Enquirer sports columnist, writes a lifestyle column on Sunday. He welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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