Monday, 28 June 2010

Gap year offers a different kind of learning experience

http://www.smh.com.au/

via Khmer NZ News Media

June 28, 2010

Taking a break can allow students to engage with the world in new and challenging ways, writes James Harpur.

As our year 12 students approach the school holidays, thoughts of not-too-distant final year assessments and university placements loom large.

But for more and more students, it is also the time to start weighing the merits or otherwise of a gap year.

The gap year has rapidly emerged as an important bridge - if not a rite of passage - in the transition from year 12 to further study or, less often, full-time work. Research on the subject is thin on the ground.

However, anecdotal evidence suggests whereas 20 years ago students taking the year off after school were in a small minority, that number is growing as students consider alternative paths to higher education and careers.

With this popularity has come a proliferation in organisations acting as gap year intermediaries, helping place students in their desired "experience". And the experiences on offer vary widely.

Most common are school exchanges in familiar countries, typically Britain. These see Australian students helping with boarding-house management or sport, for example, in return for board and lodging, not to mention a vibrant social life.

The arrangement works well for all parties and there is a well-trodden path from Australian schools to placements with counterpart schools in Britain and vice versa.

Other students take a far less structured approach, working for six months to save enough money to travel independently for the remainder of the year. Other students take working holidays, often in Europe or the United States.

Another increasingly common option is volunteering overseas. Here students link up with a non-governmental organisation or aid agency to work on a humanitarian project in a developing country.

The projects can range from marine conservation in Thailand or South Africa to English teaching in Morocco and hospital work in Mexico. For many students volunteering is a natural extension of the community service programs their schools already operate.

Queenwood has a longstanding involvement in two such programs: a school for orphans in Cambodia, and an indigenous community at Canteen Creek in the Northern Territory.

In the Cambodia project, groups of our students spend time with the school each year. It is therefore not surprising that recent years have seen Queenwood girls spend gap years volunteering in places as diverse as Britain and South America.

The popularity of the gap year begs the question: is it a good thing? In my experience, for most students the answer is unequivocally yes. While not advocating a gap year for every student, I believe it should be on the table when all students sit down to look at their post-school options.

As much as anything, a gap year offers a break from the formal education treadmill.

Consider that Australian society has become more meritocratic and competitive, and career paths are more carefully managed. There is now an expectation that young people will be in institutionalised learning from kindergarten through to university and, increasingly, postgraduate studies. We need to ask, is 20 years of formal study without a break healthy?

A gap year can also broaden personal horizons. It allows young people to engage with the world outside the confines of school or university, on terms that are new and challenging.

It offers time to reflect on achievements and aspirations. Exploring the world is important for personal development, particularly for those students who have led relatively protected lives to the end of year 12.

In my experience, young people who take the year off bring a noticeable maturity to their university studies and beyond. It matters little that they will be completing their studies at the age of, say, 25 rather than 24.

The parents of this year's crop of year 12 graduates are of the generation that pioneered the backpacker trails through Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the 1960s and '70s. Times have changed and the pressure of expectation means their children may not have that same luxury.

But as important as formal study is, it is only one dimension of a rounded education. Let's not discount the value of new experiences in unfamiliar places.

James Harpur is principal of Queenwood School for Girls.

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