Jun 5, 2008

Navigating the tricky paths to success

By Bil Paul

It's high school graduation time, with proud parents hosting parties and young students taking a breather before the next educational hurdle.

You know how hard it is to truly listen to a valedictorian's speech when you're at a graduation ceremony, what with being surrounded by all the young, beautiful and handsome faces. So, to really listen, I looked at a videotaped valedictorian's speech from last year's San Mateo High School graduation ceremony.

Alana Chin was speaking. I gather she was a little conflicted: On one hand, she was relating how intimidating getting an education is, and how flooded with responsibilities students can be. Then, she bounced right back, saying "We'll be successful because we've already attained success (in high school)" and that she and her classmates can accomplish anything because "We work hard."

I'll have to confess that my own high school days weren't the happiest times of my life. I felt disconnected, socially inept (which I blamed on my parents), addicted to TV and craved for intellectual stimulation. I looked forward to moving to a college town and being on my own. Five colleges and 15 years later, I finally worked my way up to getting a master's degree!

My high school graduating class' valedictorian and salutatorian were both women. I have assumed that girls tend to do better than boys in the grades department because young females are calmer, have fewer rough edges and aren't quite as concerned with proving themselves in a gender sort of way. If this sounds old-fashioned, it probably is. But to take a reality check, I counted the local valedictorians this year in most of the San Mateo Union and Sequoia district high schools and found that women dominated by 57 percent to 43 percent.

By the way, I'm in favor of high schools having either no valedictorians at all ( a policy which Menlo-Atherton High School has adopted) or having multiple valedictorians, where everyone above a certain high grade point average gets the title.

Elsewhere around the U.S., two-thirds of the high school valedictorians were women in the Memphis, Tenn., area, and also in the Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda area. In Houston, there was an even split, and in Stevens Point, Wis., men had fallen to 29 percent of the total.

As these accomplished women valedictorians enter college, then graduate, something happens so that their numbers lead over their male counterparts diminishes (only two percent of Fortune 1,000 companies' CEOs were women in 2006). Of course, many (as my wife did) leave their profession for a time to bear and raise children or reduce their time dedicated to a job because of child care responsibilities. Some hold back as more aggressive men jump in front of them. Others simply are the victims of conscious or unconscious bias against women in certain jobs, pay levels or promotions.

Studies have shown that valedictorians in general, having performed well within the constraints of the educational system, tend to go on to professional careers where they are also content to work within "the system" as scientists, lawyers, doctors, teachers and engineers. They usually aren't the ones to explode with intellectual fireworks, take risks to start companies, or become social activists. This is not to downgrade them, because we need our doctors, et al., who are stable, capable and predictable performers.

But it's often said, with a bit of humor thrown in, that it's our C+ students and college dropouts (like Bill Gates) and rebels (such as Einstein) who charge forward with a single-mindedness and drive, don't obey all the rules, and lead the way into change and the highest accomplishments. It's important to remember that grades are so-so predictors of success. They don't measure organizational and social skills, likability, leadership ability, raw imagination and ability to be a parent.

More and more students in high school are taking courses (such as Advance Placement college-level courses) merely to get the highest grade point average possible, not because they necessarily like the courses. Whether it's pressure from parents or from within, or both, the goal is to get into a top college such as the University of California or Stanford.

In my own case, I knew I was college bound early on, yet in high school I took a typing and a woodworking class. My parents must've bit their tongues in not objecting. Yet, typing ended up being integral to what I do now, and I have the discipline to build things with my hands, which is a great balance to working with one's brain.

At my first college, the sprawling University of Wisconsin in Madison, I knew what I really liked to do - draw, photograph, have torrid dates, listen to classical music and read about psychology. I was going to pursue psychology as a major, but it was so numbers- and experiment-oriented (rather than culturally oriented) that I grew disillusioned and rudderless. My father wanted me to become an electrical engineer, and I had no confidence in my ability as an artist or writer (I had failed as a campus newspaper reporter). So I floundered, ended dropping out of college, and drove a taxi. I was the world's worst failure, and it was the lowest point of my life.

It was only after military service, when I could pay my own college bills using GI Bill money, and could feel comfortable choosing a film major, that I began to blossom in the areas that I eventually fell into.

My advice to high school students: Enjoy your youth and experience all the facets of life. Try things out and shed them if they don't fit. School isn't the end-all, especially because people can have vastly different ways of learning. Believe in what you like to do, and do it one way or another. If you are really into photography but don't want to risk all to become a pro, take a day job and do the photography outside your regular work hours. Take the risk of marketing your work or showing it in a gallery.

And it's a mistake to assume that everyone needs to go to college. We need to ensure that high school graduates who want to enter trades such as construction, plumbing, welding, auto repair and electrical contracting get just as much encouragement and consideration in the educational scheme of things.


Bil Paul's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News. Reach him at natural_born_writer@yahoo.com.