Key SESL High School 2010 Challenge Dates
Jan.-Feb. 4, 2010--Online Registration Open for all teams
Feb 10, 2010--Brainstorming and Networking HS Kickoff, Southern NH University, Manchester, NH, 8:30am-1:30pm
April 6, 2010--Regional Semi Fi...
Congratulations to the college teams that participated in the inaugural SESL College Challenge Finals on NH's first-ever Entrepreneurship Day, May 4, 2009.
Finalists were: 1st Place to University of ...
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"Our classes are grade-oriented, but with SESL, we have an actual goal to help our community so it means much more, and it's actually something you can use in real life. I wish more of my classes were like this 'cause I can see the real world situation you can apply it to."
– Past SESL Participant
There are countless challenges facing the U.S. education system today, but high school graduation rates and engagement of students in the classroom are integral when one-third of high school students nationally are dropping out, many with less than two years to go before they get a degree.
Reasons abound for dropping out, but even among well-performing students, 47 percent say the classes just aren't interesting, according to a March 2006 Gates Foundation study. "They make you take classes in school that you're never going to use in life," one respondent said.
Gates Foundation Study
It seems we've lost the connection between in-classroom learning and real-world applications, and the results are tragic. The Gates Foundation study found that high school drop-outs are "much more likely to be unemployed, living in poverty, receiving public assistance, in prison, on death row, unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out from high school themselves."
By no means is SESL the be-all-end-all solution to this problem, but SESL offers teachers and schools an outside-the-classroom educational opportunity that creatively and passionately engages students in a real world experiential learning situation in which they can see the immediate relevance and applicability of their work.
As one of last year's NH high school student participants said, "Our classes are grade-oriented, but with SESL, we have an actual goal to help our community so it means much more, and it's actually something you can use in real life. I wish more of my classes were like this 'cause I can see the real world situation you can apply it to."
At the heart of SESL is an ardent desire to effect change, not only through re-engaging "lost" students in a program that proves to them how much of a difference their efforts can make, but also through the hundreds of individual projects these students inspire and make into reality. SESL re-engages students in issues and ideas of their choosing that are real and personally meaningful to them. The result is a highly motivated team and individuals who are empowered to succeed.
As one SESL mentor said, "Through SESL, I could see our team bonding and growing into more active adult citizens. Their participation changed how they viewed their potential, and positively altered their career and academic choices."
Students say SESL boosted their self-confidence, gave them an opportunity to shine in a way they couldn't inside the traditional classroom, and allowed them to be perceived as the thinking, caring young adults that they are, and not just a bunch of teenagers.
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