I spent the morning at my stepsister's eight grade promotion ceremony. She won the English Departments achievement award, then the award for "nicest," so go Sarah! But the actual "graduation" walk was pretty unsettling. Each student got a beautiful keepsake box adorned with a picture of their class and stuffed with...a sample college application, complete with essay and resume forms. This, the principal said, was to get the kids thinking about what types of questions colleges would ask, so they could plan out their high school years accordingly. "Did you know they want you to play a sport? Or participate in performances?" This gave rise to lots of cranky old man opinions about how the achievement treadmill is ruining our youth and how I did just fine without a mock college application before I graduated high school.
