Hard Work or Hardly Working for Global Experiences at Elite Schools?
It wouldn’t be elite school research if the idea of being a global citizen wasn’t brought up. The idea of being global leaders is a very common theme among elite schools. But what does it really mean to be a “global leader/citizen”? Being a global leader/citizen is being able to apply the skills that have been taught at school to the global market. For the students at Olive Grove, global citizenship was said to be, as student Fatima puts it, “about…keeping the humanity” and “acknowledg[ing]…biases [we] have against each other.”.
The ways that elite schools promote this idea is through community service. In our research one student claimed that almost everyone does community service during their time at Olive Grove Academy. Tariq states, “It’s not like required, required, no. But they encourage you a lot,” showing that these schools make sure to push their students towards community engagement. Many elite schools do this so their students get hands-on work with current issues of the country (Koh & Kenway, 2012). One of the major community service opportunities that was offered at Olive Grove is Roundsquare. This is where students have the opportunity to travel to a different country and experience what life is like in that country. One alum of Olive Grove said it allowed him to become a better global citizen because it exposed him to a different culture and community than what he grew up in.
I am not trying to argue that doing community service is a bad thing but more of the motives behind it at elite schools. This can be related back to the college admissions process and how colleges value certain student experiences. These elite schools know that and that’s why they put emphasis on community service. These ideologies are reflected in Olive Grove’s purpose of being not only a Jordanian school, but a “school of the world.”
Now to dig deeper into the title of my blog post this week. As we have discussed in class many of these students have grown up in elite families their whole lives. With this comes some very special privileges. When attending these elite schools many of them offer amazing opportunities to get involved with a certain community or country. With these opportunities gifted to these students, how hard are they really working to expand their global mind? How well does it actually prepare students for future success in the western world by participating in community service? Finding the proper balance between having a quality community service commitment and how prepared it gets the students is massive. That way the students are still working hard during their time doing community service.
When you add the factors of the elite schools and the opportunities that they offer to their students it makes the college admissions process easier for their students. It makes it very hard to compete with these students because of the opportunities that they have that not many people have. That’s where the “Hardly Working” aspect of the title comes into play. Many of these students are given admission to some very elite colleges because of the prior opportunities that were handed to them.
Hard working or hardly working is a question that will always remain unanswered because we will never be able to get the feel story of the private ways of the elites.
Work Cited