Print |
E-mail to a friend
OPINIONS
Editorial: Students can learn from local community leaders if they listen
Cabell County's eighth- and ninth-graders will have some special guests next week bearing an important message: The more you put into your education, the more you'll get out of it.
For their own sakes, the students should listen closely.
Bringing the advice to the students will be volunteers participating in The State Scholars Initiative, a nationally-designed program that locally is the result of a partnership involving Cabell County Schools, the Huntington Area Development Council and The Education Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student achievement in West Virginia.
The initiative involves sending about 60 local business and community leaders into classrooms during the week of March 16. The volunteers will ask the students what they want to be as adults and emphasize that realizing their hopes and dreams will require hard work and accepting challenges throughout their high school years. They will talk about how a good education can help them achieve success, and they'll explain the extra challenges the students will face as adults if they don't apply themselves in the next few years.
More specifically, they'll encourage students to take tough courses -- Advanced Placement classes, when available -- in science and math all four years of high school. The speakers will strive to discourage students from "taking the year off" when they are seniors.
The volunteers also will talk about the role their educations played in their successes.
These business people and community leaders know from their own experiences as managers and employers how important a good education is in contemporary society. They know that virtually any decent- or well-paying job nowadays requires a strong education -- one that gives a student a good knowledge base and one that teaches the student how to learn.
Very few jobs -- particularly ones that will offer the most opportunity in the years ahead -- can be had anymore without some education beyond high school. That may not mean that a four-year college degree is required, but it may mean a two-year degree or certificate or some lengthy specialized training is necessary. Building a strong foundation in middle and high school only increases a student's chances for success, no matter the type of further education required for a specific career path.
The potential payoff not only will benefit the students, who stand to have brighter futures if they apply themselves. The region also can benefit, with a better-prepared work force that will make existing companies more productive and supply a strong selling point in economic development efforts.
Credit should go to the organizations and individuals involved in bringing The State Scholars Initiative to Cabell County. The volunteers, in particular, are giving their time to convey an important message.
It will be up to the students to hear them with an open mind and a view to what will help them succeed in the future.
