College?
"What do you hope for as you anticipate college?"
I ask a high school senior and junior in late June,
and each carves out eloquent answers of their hopes,
neither speaks of reinvention, a goal I had nearly 60 years ago,
instead, each speaks of hoped-for transformative experiences
that are even more of what they've found already
in their schooling and connections up to this point in their lives,
they speak of the potential of a teacher, of a subject,
to reorient them to a new world
with door after door appearing open and tempting before them,
truths hidden, revealed,
the excitement of the hunt a learner can feel,
they speak of the potential of new friends,
new companions on a shared journey,
to hold them true to self and shake them into new paradigms,
a community of peers to combine with the communities of thought,
for them college excites the academic, artistic, social, cultural, physical
within them to explosively stretch itself,
each will mature even more fully into adult,
adults solidly on good paths to be themselves at their best,
their exact ways forward are not all that clear to them,
the needed greatness of the upcoming journey is crystal-clear.
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