Even though, “No Child Left Behind” legislation has formally left the American public school agenda, now there are the “College Readiness” standards, which all high school students must receive advisement. Now, every high school student is expected to go to college and secure a high paying, technological-advanced job. High school guidance counselors are doing their best to monitor between 200-400 students regarding their strengths and personality match ups with professions, which would not only be rewarding for them, but also pleasing goals.

The community colleges offers first semester college students a college preparation course, valued at three credits, to ensure that not only will the student have the time management, goal setting, and organizational skills necessitated for college courses, but also a clear direction towards declaring a personal strength compatible major. However, the question remains…where is the “dream” factor in this collegiate recipe? Are students going to reach for the stars and aim to achieve the near impossible during their lifetimes, or are they going to play it safe with a prescription academic path?

It is possible that the first couple of jobs which the students will obtain will be practical, and pay the bills. However, as one ages and seeks a deeper purpose in life, it may be an ideal time to explore careers outside of one’s comfort level and dream big. I would have never envisioned myself getting a PhD in Performance Psychology after retiring from elementary school teaching, but I am reaching for the stars, and I encourage others to do so as well.

Those of us who are very fortunate to have a variety of cultural representations within our classroom brick-and-mortar walls, it is imperative to give each and every one of those students a teaching voice. Not only will the teacher/professor become worldly and culturally enlightened by primary human sources, even more importantly, the peer students will be learning first-hand from native, first-generation immigrants and newly arrived refugees. We need to value and empower our precious human resources, the richly evolving cultural diversity molding moment-by-moment in America’s ever-changing society. As a developmental English and English as a Second Language college professor, I am very proud and honored to be facilitating cultural enrichment within the Maricopa community in Arizona. I encourage all teachers across America to capitalize on their human resources, which are richly present in their classrooms.

When asked to comment on instructor leadership techniques, I immediately self-reflected upon the many leaders and teachers who regularly attend my classes. No matter what age my students are, I view all of the participants as teachers. Learning is most powerfully committed to memory not by just viewing and listening to the instructional input,  but rather by teaching another learner the skill or knowledge set will solicit about 90% retention of presented material. Hence, cooperative learning has become very common place within American classrooms ranging from preschool even through the university platform. Considering the heavy influences and integration of various technology devices, I question whether or not learning will be enhanced or diminished through lessened physical face-to-face interactions. Network connectivity is a progressive technological phenomena and possible teaching pedagogy, which will enter the performance educational psychology domain in the near future.

In 2014, in an editorial in the New York Times, Frank Bruni wrote about the unfortunate financial situation college students often find themselves in, but went on to describe other aspects of college:  “While these [financial] goals are important…there’s another dimension to college, and it’s one in which students aren’t being served, or serving themselves, especially well. I’m referring to the potential — and need–for college to confront and change political and social aspects of American life that are as troubling as the economy.  We live in a country of sharpening divisions, pronounced tribalism, corrosive polarization. And I wish we would nudge kids — no, I wish we would push them– to use college as an exception and a retort to that, as a pre-emptive strike against it, as a staging ground for behaving and living in a different, broader, healthier way.”